Nomadic Goat Herders and the Occasional European
by Nitlon
Summary: Vicki and Henry run into some problems with the Scary Vampire Government.
1. In Which There Is Singing

_ Disclaimer: Most of these characters belong to Blood Ties, obviously any referenced music belongs to the bands (and Sweeney Todd) and eventually there will be Christopher Moore references and Princess Bride references. _

_OTHER disclaimer: While Joanna may be very critical of the characters, that is supposed to be her opinion. I've tried to keep my own opinions and personality out of this entirely (an exercise of self-control, it being in first person present tense and all)._

"Hello again." He's reappeared suddenly in the chair opposite me, evidently in the five or so seconds I'd been looking halfheartedly at my deceased watch. Ah, and the smile, the smile of a perpetual child.

"I see you've abused the power of an open door, Mr.…?" I cocked my head to the side, refusing to succumb to his…oh, what is it called here? "Powers of persuasion"? Why, oh, why is it always an alliteration?

"You know my name. You were looking it up just a small while ago." He leans forward into his chair, propped up on his arms in what I suppose is a seductive way. Wow, I am so sick of being vampire bait right now. What, do I give off pheromones or something? This is what, number four? Of the other three, I only actually bothered to keep in contact with one. The one, that is, that's managed to stay out of TV shows and/or literature, most likely because he isn't pale, from Europe, or an asshole.

"Well, then, Mr. Fitzroy, can I help you with something or are you here for the express reason of keeping your skills in shape?" The smug smile quickly drains from his face, and I twirl the metaphorical plug around my finger. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean." Well, goodness me, this could be more fun than last time. He's got an ego.

"Why exactly are you here? I do have things to do." It isn't entirely a lie, I am checking my email right now, though mostly it's lovely and important spam like preventing aerial wolf hunting, a process which someone needs to explain to me. This is getting ridiculous.

He smiles again and leans very far forward so that our faces are almost touching, which I'm sure he expected to invoke flustered stammers and blushing on my part. I just glare at him very pointedly. _I. Have. Better. Things to do._ Undaunted, he speaks in hushed tones. "I was just wondering…have you ever…" he froze, I can see visible hesitation in his eyes and I know what he's smelled on me. "I see you have a dog." I almost want to laugh out loud, or at the very least chuckle malevolently, because the word 'dog' is just about the best _possible_ understatement for Bolt. I smile back, deciding to play along temporarily.

"Oh, yes, he's lovely. How did you know? He certainly doesn't shed much!" I've actually surprised myself at the lack of bitter sarcasm in my voice, barely a tinge.

His truly confident smile returns, and I know he thinks he's found a chink in the armor. Ah, but Henry, little do you know that it's one of the strongest links. I'm just glad the recent walk with Bolt covered up the other smell. "Oh, just a feeling. I'm quite good at sniffing out things like that." Oh, ha, get it. "Sniffing" out, see, because he has souped up olfactory senses. Yeah, well, so do fish. Still, staring at this Fitzroy character, I know one thing: he's hungry. Biparta, uniparta or vispus, they all have one thing in common: when they're hungry, and you're looking for it, the fangs push through the roof of the mouth just enough to be visible. Maybe he'll let us skip past the whole flirtation crap, which at this point is mostly lost on me. I chuckle softly to myself, leaning back in my chair. I finger one of the scars on my shoulder out of simple habit. Almost lost on me.

He's leaning forward once again, taking a strand of my hair and toying with it coyly, and effect which I'm sure is usually sexy. I rest my folded arms on my desk and hide half of my face so that only my eyes are visible. Come on, notice. Notice. The smell under the smell, notice it, be scared. His nostrils flare for a second, but whatever he smells he brushes off as unimportant. Inwardly sighing, I stand up.

"Can we get this over with please?" I ask. His eyes narrow suspiciously, a split second of emotion before going back to the playboy façade. "Get what over with?" his eyes flash dangerously.

I snort and roll my eyes. Doesn't this one have a PI friend who should be dealing with him? "Stupid European fairies." He stood up suddenly, knocking the chair back so hard that one of the legs splintered when it hit the floor. In a lightning fast movement, he had me up against a wall, one hand around my neck. "_What did you just say_?" His voice sounds doubled over, his eyes pitch black. I must admit, I like the 'vampire-mode' of the vispus a lot better, then again I suppose I'm biased. Oh, yes, everyone fawn over the pretty boy, then he'll wreak havoc on your circulatory system.

"Relax, please. That doesn't work on me anymore. Mr. Magic did something." Mr. Pollox is his actual name, but everyone calls him Mr. Magic for reasons best explained through interpretive dance.

"Johnny? That you?" I could hear Mort loudly announcing his presence, something which I'd had to repeatedly ask him to do before it became habit. This could get interesting.

He enters the room, Bolt just behind him. For Henry's sake, I really hope Bolt attacks first. The four-hundred pound hellhound let out a low, angry growl, but more worryingly Mordecai was standing perfectly still, grinning. Bolt leaps at Henry's throat, clamping down firmly and _holding _for all he's bloody well worth. Henry releases his stronghold on me and wrestles his neck from the dog, falling into a crouch as they circle each other.

"Oh, Bolt, just leave him alone. They boy's thirsty." Mort's still grinning at me like an idiot, never taking his eyes off of my face. Finally, he manages a glance in Fitzroy's direction, and ironically enough "Wake Up The Dead" by Reed Foehl is blasting on my computer speakers. What can I say, I love Indie. "Oh! You must be Mr. Fitzroy. You'll excuse Bolt's manners, but you have to understand, like owner like pet. I still bear an almost unjustified grudge against all you old Englishmen." Fitzroy un-vamped, or whatever the term is for going back to looking like a pale human, and took in the sight of Mort.

"What'd I do to you?"

"Uh, not so much you, just…well, Britain." Henry seems to notice for the first time the rich brown tone of Mort's skin, his dark curly hair.

"Ah. You're Indian."

"Oh, congrats! Royal boy gets a point!" He snorts, then seems to remember why he'd showed up in the first place.

"FREE RADICALS!" he shouts in my general direction.

"…come…come again?" He laughs then runs over to me, picking me up and swinging me around, all the while grinning in my face, which makes it quite hard for me to breath. Finally he sets me down.

"Free radicals! You know what a free radical is, don't you Joanna?"

"They're what wreak havoc on your body." Henry answered calmly. Oh, he just had to answer that, didn't he?

"When you inhale oxygen, about two percent of it turns into free radicals, which are basically loose electrons. These 'loners' travel throughout your body and break apart other molecules, therefore causing aging and, eventually, death. If you're exercising particularly hard, more like 10 percent of the oxygen turns into free radicals. That's why antioxidants are considered so good: they help to prevent damage from free radicals." Well, now, Mr. Fitzroy. I must formally tell you to suck it, cause I just opened up a can o' whoop ass on you. Respectfully.

"Right, well, see…wait. You. Leave." He points to Henry and then the door.

Before he even had a chance to move, Mort was scolding me into next Tuesday. "What the hell were you thinking Johnny? Is it your goal to die before you reach thirty? Because believe you me, you're well on your way. You know how touchy males are in that species! I mean, come on, I think you ought to have learned by now." He attempts to glare me down, which we both know is futile, because I've out stared fish. I'm pretty sure Fitzroy's left, but I'm too busy trying not to burst with laughter. I usually have a pretty good poker face, but for some reason it dissolves with Mort. His always dissolves first, though.

"Pfft." His resolve deflates with a smothered laugh. I grin and shake just slightly with silent laughter. Still, technically he just got one up on me, so I'm obligated to prod back a bit.

"As much fun as you needlessly saving my ass again, you should probably get home soon."

"Why?" he asks, and it's a wonder he doesn't already know. Using my traditional method, I just stare at him for a while until he comes to his own conclusions.

"My teeth are showing, aren't they?"

"Ding ding! Give the man a cookie!"

"Are you done?"

"Maybe. Give me a minute." He snorts and sits down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk while I seat myself behind it, kicking my feet up.

"So, when you called me a couple days ago I got worried. I thought you were gonna come over here and make me help you solve crimes."

"Ah, yes, there is pure evil on the loose and we must stop it before it kills all of Canada and exposes our well kept secret!"

"I think everybody knows about the hockey, Mort."

"No, the other secret."

"Oh, you mean the whole –"

"Ahem." Oh, so I guess he didn't leave. Well, that must be embarrassing. I can't help but feel a bit sorry for him.

"You know…If you're hungry, there's a bar right down the street. Lots of pretty women." Mordecai smirks a little, his back to Henry, who is looking kind of like a confused puppy. Thinking back on what I just said, I can see how he'd still be wondering if I knew.

_Curiosity killed the cat._

I lean forward a little so that my shirt slips down a bit over my left shoulder, revealing fourteen separate silvery scars of bite marks.

_Satisfaction brought it back._

His jaw clenches for a second, his eyes questioning, and I remember his profile describing him as kind of on the melodramatic side. Whipping out his phone, he sweeps out of the room. _Oh, that'll teach you, suckah._

"I must say, Johnny. You are a first rate mind-fucker." Mort grins at me.

"But that was still really stupid." I shrug and begin to pull my t-shirt back up on my shoulder. He reaches out and tentatively touches one of the scars, surprising me, before pulling back and pursing his lips.

"When are you going to tell me where those come from?" he asks me, a slight pang of sadness in his voice.

"Don't change the subject. What's so great about free radicals?"

That kind-of-crazed look is back in his eyes. "Well, this is impossible."

"Yeah, well, tell me something that _is_ possible about you."

"Okay, well, you know how they're free electrons right?"

"No, that's why I made a speech about it."

"Well, when a vampire inhales, the free electrons are immediately bonded to some unknown substance – that's the impossible part – and become instead a storable form of venom. So, I dunno how this part works yet, but instead of letting the electrons tear us apart, we store them in our bloodstream, so when we give a person our blood that substance is transferred to them and then begins to multiply in that person's body and the transformation takes place, albeit a painful one, and I figure the substance must be maybe some type of cell or at least mRNA so that the genetic differences in the species can be transferred too, and – "

"Shut up."

"What?! Don't you realize, I figured it out! I figured it the bloody hell out! However something many years I've spent trying to figure it –"

"And you're still figuring it out, so I suggest you write this theory down on a pad of paper and let the thoughts sizzle in your mind for a few more days before you freak out on me." He sighs and leans back, lacing his hands behind his head. He doesn't want to admit it, but he knows I'm right.

"Hey, I never asked, are you okay?"

I rubbed my neck thoughtfully for a moment, but couldn't feel any impending bruises. "Yeah, a little sore, I'll be fine. Nothing compared to this weird aching shoulder I've had all day." I shift my right shoulder awkwardly to try and alleviate the pain.

"Really? I would think it would be your other shoulder." Another little pry at the question clearly nagging his mind, those are becoming more frequent.

"Nah, that one never hurts." He grunted.

"'Kay, well, we do actually have work. Pollox, in all of his glorious paranoia, has found another club and suspects that some more unipartas have shown up there, says some of the spec op guys have found some…" he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a crumpled bunch of stapled papers. "'Suspicious blood stains and scents denoting possible new vampires in the area.' Their words, not mine."

"Wait, in Toronto? Man, they never come to Canada! I thought they stayed in our LA and New York areas for the most part."

"Maybe they got over their egos for once." He grins at me and tilts his head, the tiny golden hoop in his ear catching the light. I'd always wondered where he got that, obviously it was before he'd become a vampire, and he must have not taken it out ever since. Otherwise a hole that small would have healed over almost immediately. It'd always distracted me, it has this weird pattern of two peaks pointing downward, then two peaks pointing upward, then three horizontal lines, that repeats all around it. It sounds like an exceedingly simple design, but I'd never seen anything like it. I'd always known he was older than he claimed to be (90 years), but just how old remains to be seen.

"Hey." His voice is soft as he returns from leaning backwards to look at me. "Where'd you go?" I snapped back to reality, or my clear lack thereof. "Sorry." He frowned, his gaze unrelenting. This is the stare I can't bear, so I look at the Mirrormask poster up behind him. Since he's obviously not intent on saying anything, I start counting how many fish there are in the school flying under the bridge. It's somewhere around fifty four. Right, so, done with that and still burning my skin off under his gaze, so I go online to find some more music, finally settling on my Maritime/Alaska in Winter/Sweeney Todd soundtrack playlist. It's an odd mix, but I like it. I've gotten all the way down to "Are We Renegade" (music is a large aspect of my life, have you noticed yet?) before he gives up trying to get a confession out of me by smoldering gaze power alone. He sighs and shakes his head.

"Why, oh, why did I have to pick a difficult partner?"

"Because if you'd picked a cute one she'd be dead by now. 'Sides, I'm just a test subject." He shoots me a look for this.

"C'mon, Johnny, them perps ain't gonna catch themselves!"

I snort. "Argh! They make my blood boil!" I cock my head to the side. "Uh, wait. Seriously, you need to eat. It's really starting to show."

"Actually, it's a Goth club anyway, so I'll really just fit in more." He flashes white-gold eyes. No matter how many times I see that, it gives me chills. "Bolt!" he calls, and Bolt comes trotting along like a perfectly obedient hellhound, black coat shining impeccably. I wonder if I could ride him.

"Wait, it's a Goth club?" He nods, slowly, like he was finally getting his point across to a particularly slow senior. "You could've told me that before we were about to leave!" I shout as I head back into my bedroom to change. "I thought the entire point of me was to fit in!" While I'm searching for my black chain-link-y-looking sweater, and that stupid bloody eye makeup that I know I'm going to have to wear, a thought occurs to me. "Fitzroy broke the leg of that chair, how were you sitting in it?"

From the office, I can here a distinctive "Ha! I'm a vampire. I don't waste time on falling over anymore." I return that with a "Ha!" of my own, only to turn around and realize that he's _leaning on the doorframe of my bedroom._

"Dude." I say, using one of my rare and effective accusatory 'dudes'.

"What?"

"Not cool."

"Why? Not like you're changing, all you're going to do is put that sweater made of, what is it? Looks like barely strung together yarn, over your t shirt and put on eye makeup or something." I really hate that he knows that.

"Yeah, wait, how did Fitzroy find you anyway? You didn't…seek him…out…did you?" I can't help but grin and milk it, just a little.

"Are you saying I can't?" He frowned.

"I guess not. Just…well, you didn't seem too glad to see him." He bounces his eyebrows.

"Oh, I can never be too glad to see Henry Fitzroy!" I hold my hand up to my forehead and fake swoon. Actually, I've already forgotten what he looks like. Mort smiles a little, letting a comfortable silence ensue for just too short a time before glancing at his watch. "And…let the night life emerge!" he said, cuing his finger to signify 9:00.

"'Kay, gimme a sec." I pull the sweater over my head, pulling my hair out of its pony tail and haphazardly putting on the black shade of eye shadow which I hate. I don't really like makeup that much regardless, but I don't feel the need to make myself look like a raccoon. I like raccoons, but really. You should see me right now. I look back at Mort who, of course, is dressed in some half-assed ensemble of black collared shirt and the beige coat he always wears. Thing that gets me is, he still looks fine.

"How do I look? Sufficiently Gothic?" I ask.

"Mmm, still on the line between just a lot of eye makeup and gothic, put on some lipstick or something." He folds his arms across his chest and Bolt sits down beside him. His head still reaches Mort's torso, even sitting. That dog is amazing. Five minutes ago he was sinking his teeth into the neck of a two hundred pound ambush predator, now he's panting and wagging his tail at me.

I take out a dark maroon colored lipstick and put it on. I think it's important to clarify here that I wouldn't normally own or wear any of these things, but part of my [night job is fitting in so that no one notices me. Ha. Says the girl with three different natural colors of hair.

"Come on Gothie, let's go." He grins at me and the three of us head out the door into the night. I can't see the stars, though, because it's cloudy and the city lights have cast a sickly orange barf glow over the sky. I sigh as I stare up, but quickly look back down again because my right shoulder is still sore, and I'm wincing. Mordecai absentmindedly places a hand on my shoulder and rubs his thumb on the sore spot while we walk, more subconsciously than purposefully. He soon has to pull away, though, because Bolt wedges his way between us and he's about two feet wide. I laugh and start scratching him between the shoulder blades, one of his favorite spots. Mort smiles and pats his head. "Funny animal," he mutters. Uh…I really hope he's talking about Bolt.

We've arrived at the club, and I'm surprised a place like this has escaped my attention for so long since it's so close to my flat.

"Okay, techno up, champ." He says to me, fishing out a conveniently ear-sized communication device. I always wear one when we work, as does he, it's made things much easier. He leans in and carefully inserts it into my ear, brushing my hair back. This close to his face, I can see his fangs are just about fully unsheathed now. It's very disconcerting.

"Are…are you done yet?" My voice falters. He laughs, quietly, and a little bit condescendingly, then leans in further and 'vamps out', or whatever term it would be. White gold eyes with cat like pupils stare holes through my face, and I realize that I'm shaking a little.

"What? Did I scare you?"

No, Mort. No, _you_ didn't scare me.

"Oh, jeez, can you just catch me up and we'll go in?" I look down at Bolt. "And what're we going to do about him?"

"He'll take care of himself. Here, take this." He hands a me a packet of papers. "Women known to frequent this club that have had missing persons reports filed…oh, and we're adding San Francisco to our scope. Wait, what is this club even called?"

"I thought you'd know!" I stare at the overdone excessively archaic writing, trying to separate curls from letters. "What does that say?"

"I…I honestly can't tell. Looks kinda like 'bmourf…kjbah.' Um."

"So kind of like someone mashed a palm on a keyboard than mounted it on a black wall?"

"Yeah, that sounds right. Were you even listening before? You aren't looking at the packet."

" I know the type. Young, beautiful, skinny, Gothic."

"Exactly. Kinda like you. So please be careful." I snort at him, tucking a stray strand of dirty blond and black out of my face.

"Yeah, except for the fact that I'm missing a few key aspects of the profile," I say, scrunching up my face to emphasize my point.

"Crap." I mutter.

"What?"

"We're solving crime." I mock whine at him. "Make it stop! Waah!" He laughs, then shrugs off his beige coat and ruffles his hair a little bit. Even though he's now wearing all black, he still doesn't really look all too Gothic. More like a well dressed foreigner. Then he opens his mouth and stretches his jaw a bit, revealing his teeth, and his snake eyes return. Ah, there we go. In fact, probably about two thirds of the people in this club are already wearing fake fangs, and some wear contacts, for this very purpose. Actually, some of them probably look more menacing than he does.

I chuckle, and he swings his arm around my waist as we walk up to the door. Bolt is following behind us closely, and for a second I revel in the stares we get from across the street. The guy at the door, who has a black Mohawk fringed with neon green and is wearing a spiky collar and black leather vest (no shirt), almost stops us. Mort gives him a glance, and I can tell those eyes are all it takes for him to decide we're club material. He looks from the huge, menacing black dog to me, looking the compliant Goth girl, to him, with his fangs and all black clothing.

"_Dude_._Nice_!" He holds up his hand for a high five (fine, okay, a 'hand slap'). Mort tries not to laugh and gives him one, and this is a great time for me to have 'The Worst Pies in London' stuck in my head.

"A customer!" I say in a vaguely British accent.

"Oh, please, not now."

"Wait! What's your rush, what's your hurry?

You gave me such a fright I thought you was a ghost!

Half a minute can't you sit!

Sit you down! Sit!

All I meant is that I haven't seen a customer for weeks.

Did you come here for a piiiie, sir?" I sing, doing my imitation of Mrs. Lovett.

"Listen, you're good at that, but really. Goth girls don't sing musical numbers."

"But it's about a serial killer!"

"No, Johnny, that one's about pies. You really can sound older if you want, though."

"Hey, it's my day job." The guy at the door gives a strange look, wondering why such a great, high-five deserving guy is hanging out with a woman with a chameleon voice. I wink at him at then we step into the club.

"You're sure you'll be okay if I leave you on your own? You may speak to me if you feel the need."

"Really, how many times have we done this? Plenty. Plenty of times. I know how to deal with vampires." He's staring at my shoulder, the one covered with silver white scars. I pull my shirt back up over them, trying to ignore the questioning glare. "And now I shall take my place." I joke, jumping up on one of the bar stools. In the background, surprisingly enough, it sounds like Rykarda Parasol or something is playing. I would've pegged this place as the type to blast "The Used" at full volume, not the more gentle and [I hate to say it mysterious tones of 'Hannah Leah', or whatever this is. I had to do that one once for this weird flashing lights show at the Dome. It's a bit …well, bizarre, frankly.

"Mmm, I was more worried about what you'd do to anyone that comes near you." He smiles, then answers my unspoken question. "Red's touching yellow," he explains, pulling my hair forward to cover the ear bug. I glance at my hair and realize he's right, my bands of red are all sandwiched between bands of dirty blond instead touching any black. It was sort of an inside joke, that my personality depended on my hair like the couplet about telling corn snakes from milk snakes.

_Red touch black, friend of Jack._

_Red touch yellow, kill a fellow._

I grin. "I won't bite. I promise." He just smiles for a second. "Right, off melting I go." He tells me, melting into the crowd.

"What can I get you?" The bartender was dressed in insanely tight leather, bright red. Her eye makeup was excessive enough to even spread up to her forehead and down to her cheeks, in the style of bat wings. I just smirk and tell her "Nothing."

"What about your guy?"

"…sorry, what guy?" I look behind me.

"The one you were just talking to. Oh, come on. You two come in here and he's got his arm around your waist. Yeah, I saw it." She grins at me. I'm trying to control my laughter, because the very idea of Mordecai being interested in _anyone_ was pretty amusing.

Wow, I must be psychic. "The Bird and the Worm" is now blasting in the background by the one-hit-wonder band "The Used". It's okay the first few times, but it needs to pick a personality. "Do you guys have anything other than this music?" I ask earnestly.

She purses her lips. "Why, you some sort of music expert? This band speaks to us."

"Uh, technically, yes I am."

"Really."

"Really."

"What makes you such an expert then?"

"I'm a second-in-command at the Dome. Staff management and a little electronics and…you know, singing." There's a look of surprise on her features, which I wasn't expecting. Most people don't know that there is anyone behind-the-scenes. "No way! Like, seriously? You go up on the stage and like sing?"

"No." she pouts.

"I do the actual singing. I don't look pretentious enough to actually be on the stage." Well, that isn't entirely true. The Dome doesn't employ many people, and those it does employ have to be able to do many things at once. It would be a waste, according to our manager Shelly, to just be singing all night like a spectacle when I could be doing so many other things. Easier to pay some random girl forty dollars for four or five hours of sitting on a stage mouthing words on a piece of paper. Plenty of desperate college girls around to do that sort of work, a new one every night. The Dome promises live music, just not from the person on the stage – no one would believe that I can make my voice sound that different, mimic nearly any woman I want to.

"Oh. That's cool, I guess. Nice hair."

"You won't believe me, but it's natural. Seriously, can I please change your music? Believe me when I say I'll find something to suit this place." She just stares at me for a second.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I guess if you work there you must know something. See if you can get any of the guys to change it."

That's what I needed to hear: an in to the back. Chances are if these guys have a security system it'll be near where the speaker equipment is managed. Best way to single out any possible suspects.

"Right through there." She jerks her head to a black door guarded by what I've taken to calling human bull dogs. I walk over, trying my best to swing my hips and most likely failing, and glare at the one on the left. "She sent me." I jerk my head over to the bartender. "You guys need serious music help. This is sad." He glances at the bartender, who shrugs and nods, then shrugs and opens the door.

"Hello." I say to dimly lit room that looks not unlike the electronics wall behind the stage of the Dome. Multicolored wires connected consoles and speakers to a row of computers. I know the feeling well, this space belonged to these people and this is what works best for them. Screw you if you don't like it. A guy with shaggy blond hair wearing a t shirt and jeans turns to look at me. "Huh. Party's outside, Gothie. This is the tech room."

"Yeah, it was nice to meet you too. I came to make music suggestions." I glance up at the array of black and white security camera footage on one wall. "You need help with that?"

"No offense, but I don't think you could help me with anything here." I snort and walk over to one of the panels, tugging on a few wires here and there. The picture on the security camera screens gets considerably clearer.

"Dome," I explain. Here a one word answer gets my point across, most people who know what it is don't care who works there.

"Oh, right. Sorry. Kind of hard to tell." He gestures to my clothing.

"The music's really that bad?" I feel kind of bad for trashing The Used, they aren't that bad, really.

"I just feel like it could be better. Y'know?"

"Yeah, I guess. I'm kind of an acoustic guitar guy myself."

"No way, really? You know Barefoot Truth?"

"I thought no one knew them!" I laugh, I've found a fellow music snob.

"Something tells me the people out there won't exactly appreciate 'Windward' playing at full blast while they drink unpronounceable liquids." He laughs too, we've found common ground.

"'Kay, fine, so what do you suggest, oh heavenly goddess who works at the holy Dome?"

"For here? I'm thinking Halou might work. Plus, 'Honeythief' has been stuck in my head all day."

"Never heard of them."

"How's the music hooked up here?"

"Basically really big speakers attached to my itunes play list."

"Can I?" I move in toward one of the computers, giving myself a better view of the monitors. I go online and find the indie site I frequent, and for just a second consider the prospect of playing "The Worst Pies In London", just to see the reaction. Instead I find Halou and start playing a song, taking a little bit of satisfaction to hear it start in the club just beyond the door. I put my hands on my hips, pretty self smug, and look up at the monitors again. I see people with black swooshy hair and impossibly long eyelashes twist and contort their bodies in a way that I suppose is considered dancing, neon lights flashing in the background.

I start looking for guys in the crowd that might match the profile of a typical vampire (young, handsome, turned by lovers), but spot something else. I reach up to my ear and press the button that lets him hear me.

"That Fitzroy guy had…had a friend, right? A private investigator?"

"Yes, what is your point?" His voice is clouded by static.

"Blonde, early thirties, wears glasses, pretty?"

"As far as I'm able to remember."

"Okay."

"…really? You aren't going to explain this to me?"

"Not until I'm sure that it's her."

"Wait, I think I see her." I watch and see Mort show up in the lower corner of the screen I may have spotted the private investigator in. Infuriatingly enough, I can't seem to hear what either one is saying, but I see Mort sidle up to her and try to begin a conversation shouting over the music. I can't quite tell from here, but it looks like he's managed to keep his fangs mostly hidden and his eyes returned back to normal.

"Her name's Vicki Nelson." I hear through the bug, not expecting Mort's voice. She certainly is pretty, tall too, has sort of a valley girl vibe. Boot-wearing, self-reliant type. I feel a twinge of, pride I guess would be the right word, not relief, that their conversation seems all-business. Well, I can't read Nelson's tells, but Mort isn't smiling at all. Then I see Bolt trot up beside him and can't help but chuckle a bit, followed by guilt for taking pleasure in this woman's slight unrest at a four hundred pound killing machine sitting there like an obedient puppy. I have to cover my mouth when he starts wagging his tail, about the width and strength of a steel pipe, clears a space behind him with a radius of nearly two feet. I see their conversation come to an end with polite nods and smiles, and she watches him leave with a suspicious glance.

"Unless you found something else, I think we can leave. We'll meet you out back." I can't hold back a little sigh, I like it back here. Behind the scenes, unseen and controlling their perfect little world. I glance back at the guy who runs it back here.

"You know girls have been going missing from here? I mean, do you know why?" He glances up at me and smiles.

"My guess would be broken hearts." Aha.

"Broken by who?" He raises his eyebrows, but is still looking at a computer screen.

"Why? Looking for someone?"

"You could say that."

"I'm Nikolai." I stiffen.

"You said you had an idea on who was doing this?" He looks up, looking kind of rejected. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But I can't tell why I'm saying no.

"Yeah. A guy, kind of mid to late twenties, dark hair, trenchcoat or peacoat or whatever." He's staring at the computer screen, pointedly trying not to make eye contact.

"I'm sorry, Nikolai, really. I…have a boyfriend." I feel a twinge of guilt at the lie, but it's a hell of a lot easier than the truth.

"Yeah, sure, you all have boyfriends," he says under his breath.

"No, seriously, under different circumstances…" _If I were normal. If I didn't have the creepiest people issues this side of the Atlantic._

He lets out a cynical and humorless "Ha!". Wait, really? You're going to get that pissy over something like that? I just met you. Still, I can't help but wonder. Am I really going to go that berserk over a name?

As if on cue, the chorus of the Halou song comes up.

_Everything is unacceptable_

_If you over analyze_

_And that is just your style._

As wise as a rock band is, I'm antisocial. Pretty hard for me to keep up the few contacts I have. Still, what the hell, there's no harm in a little consolation.

I move closer. "Really." I lean in so that I'm hovering just above Nikolai and he's forced to look up at me. I can see a bit of belief spread across his features, the cruel resentment waning.

"Thank you, Nik. I hope I see you again." I leave out a door conveniently marked 'Exit', to see Mort and Bolt waiting for me.

"Late twenties, dark hair, peacoat, heartbreaker." I tell him. He looks moderately surprised.

"Yeah, cause that doesn't describe like every other guy in there."

"Ahem. Pea coat?"

"You don't think – no."

"Well, you know any other pea coat wearing unipartas?"

"What, mister 'holier-than-thou I don't eat women'? No, no way."

"But – "

"Whatever, let's just tell Pollox. They find the guy, we get him. So far we've done our jobs." I sigh and run a hand through my hair. It's barely 11, which I suppose is kind of late, but I hardly ever have to get to work before noon anyways. No one has a party in the morning.

"You suck all the fun out of everything." He looks indignant and is about to say something before I interrupt him.

"Okay, fine, bad word choice. What now?"

"What? You wanna do something? I thought you'd be tired."

"Please. Speculation is the best part!" He laughs and looks at me sideways.

"Right. Except for the fact that we're almost always wrong." I thwack him in the arm.

"Fine, be that way. So what'd you find out about…uh…"

"Victoria Nelson?"

"Yeah, that one." We start walking in a general direction best described as 'away from the club', and I stuff my hands in my pockets.

"I don't know. What do you want to know? It wasn't exactly an in-depth interview."

"Why was she there?"

"Some private I thing, I guess." I shiver and he moves a little closer.

"You cold?"

"Bah! Heaven knows I tryyyy, siiir!

But there's no one comes in even to inhale!

Right you are sir would you like a drop of ale?

Mind you I can hardly blaaame theeem!

These are probably the worst piiiies in Looondon!"

"Oh, oh we're back to this now."

"I know why nobody cares to take them!

I should know, I make them, but good? Nooo!

The woooorst piiies in Looondon!"

"Do…do you ever stop?"

"Even that's polite, the wooorst piiies in Loooondon!"

"Okay, that's it." Grinning, he threads an arm around my waist and picks me up like a manikin, carrying me under his arm.

"If you dare to take a bite – "

"Joanna."

"Is that just disgusting?

You have toooo conceeeede it!"

He laughs, wholeheartedly, and puts me down.

"You done now?"

"Temporarily." He snorts. "Come on, let's go back now. You know, you do sound exactly like the person who performs it on your recording."

"Chameleon voice. Yay! Not original enough for my own voice, but I can copy anyone else." I pull off my weird sweater and take a tissue out of my pocket.

"Why the tissue?"

"All the better to remove Gothic eye makeup, my dear."

"No, wait, it's smudge – whatever. You want me to take you back home?"

"Are you offering me a ride on your white horse?"

"But of course, m'lady." He offers his arm in mock chivalry.

"Right, don't avoid this time, what was she doing there?" He sighs, and I know that he knows.

"Says that Fitzroy suspects other vampires encroaching on his territory, she's trying to find out who and why."

"I don't suppose you offered to help." Silence.

"Oh, Mordecai!"

"What?!"

"You offered to help!"

"We're doing the same thing!"

"She's a civilian!"

"So are you." I frown at him. The indignant look fades from his face, replaced by one of indecision between frustration and amusement. I don't know what he meant by that comment, if he was comparing both of us, saying I was just as useless.

"Sorry. That came out wrong." He looks apologetic.

"That's fine. I'm going to go home now. Bye Mort, Bolt." He takes the hint, if he does look a bit hurt.

"So I'll see you later?"

"Yeah, I guess you will." I watch him leave with Bolt trotting along at his heels, until he turns the corner into a side street and I'm looking at an empty road. I stuff my hands in my coat pockets and turn in the other direction, but not before I see a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Whipping around, I'm almost sure I see a dark figure dart into the alley opposite me. And I'm almost sure a here a "Quiet!"

XXX

Sometimes, during the day, Bolt will come and visit me. He knows the way here well enough to go on his own, so when Mort's doing something that doesn't involve him he'll just show up at my door. So I'm not very surprised when I open the door to see a dog that looks like an impossibly large and black Great Dane (but less floppy).

"Hey, Bolt." He trots in and I close the door behind him. I was about to watch Princess Bride anyways, so it'll be nice to have a warm pillow that can tear the throat out of any supernatural beast that decides I'd make a nice meal. Knowing his place well, he flops down in front of my couch. I flop myself down in front of him, curling up and resting my back on his stomach. He lets a long breath out, which puts me in mind of an equine creature.

"You really are more like a bear-horse, aren't you?" He snorts, and my head rises and falls with his intake of breath. The sound from the movie helps keep the silence of the house comfortable, and I remember why I crave the company of animals over people. No such thing as awkward silence. Absentmindedly, I twirl a few shed furs in between my fingers. A scene comes on that I've never found much interest in ("Can you move at all?" "Move? You're alive! If you want I can fly!"), so I take the opportunity to fetch a pear from my kitchen/dining room/office. When I return I seat myself on the couch, resting my feet on Bolt (he doesn't mind).

Comfortably, the two of us watch the movie and I'm getting more and more drowsy.

"Miss me, dear?"

I freeze. There, that voice, I know that voice. Luckily, I think better in crises.

"Goodness, those morticians did a bang-up job. You look so lifelike." I resist the urge to look at him.

"Well, you know me, I always did try to look my best for you." I can feel his words, his mouth right by my ear, and I know, I just _know_, that he's holding his hands behind his back like the bastard he is.

"What do you want, Nikolai." I manage to keep the shiver vibrating my body from tainting my voice, but I'm trembling.

"Oh, I see. That's lovely, sweet, pretend you don't know." I find myself trying to breathe normally, and realize that Bolt isn't doing anything. I wiggle one foot to see if I can feel him. Nothing.

"Oh God, please don't." I say, angry with myself for sounding so useless and feeble, frozen with fear when he grabs my neck and sinks teeth in. Practiced habit takes over, and I pass out.

XXX

To be continued (insert ominous music of your choice)...reviews feed my plot bunnies.


	2. In Which We Leave Some Loose Ends

_A/N: Not much happens in this chapter, but it was either that or have another bajillion page long one._

I wake up on the couch, unsure of my memories from last night. My hand flies to my neck, and I feel no marks, but there wouldn't be. You have to be bitten multiple times in the same place in order for any sort of scar to appear. If he'd been here, he would have used a new place. That man was (is?) a first rate mind-fucker. Bolt is still asleep on the floor at my feet, and his lack of distinct movement allows me one point on the side of normalcy. Happy hellhound no bloodsucking, right? I yawn and turn to face the back of my couch, still lying down. Blood stain.

Crap.

Just to double check, I watch Bolt for a second. For a terrifying moment, I don't see any up or down movement of his chest to signify breathing, and he's as still as stone. Then I see the distinctive heave-ho of his breath, and realize I'd been holding mine. I feel my neck again; it may not have a wound, but it's sore as hell.

Oh my God.

He's alive.

My breathing becomes shallow, and I have to support myself with my hands as I rise from the couch.

Is this good? I cried for him. When he died. In a sense it's a relief to not have to carry the guilt of his death as a burden. My life was just getting back into the swing of things, too. God, I hate going through things like this alone, having to make these choices based only on what information I have given myself. No. No, this could be good, he could be good, we could be good again.

I walk over to my computer and out of instinct start some music, but it falls on deaf ears. I turn off my computer, and decide to get myself some food, and once again habit takes over. Iron supplements, water, crackers and an ice pack. Ah, I so wish I didn't know how to do this so well. I'm pouring the water into a glass when I feel arms wrap around my waist.

"I'm sorry." He sounds much more human this morning, like a repentant child. I'm less tense, too.

"You got what you came for. Why haven't you left yet?" I turn to look at him, and he hasn't changed at all. Same face, same hair.

"I came here for you. Not because I was thirsty." Oh, you always have to make these things difficult, don't you? 'I came here for you.' You came here because you were bored.

"That's the first issue you chose to address though, isn't it?" I remember that Nik used to have sway with me, that at one point I actually did swoon like a complete moron. In a way, he helped me, as now it's virtually impossible for me to even come close to giving in to hormones and emotions. I think I can almost see hurt register in his face before he goes back to his mask of mild amusement. Actually, it's less of a mask and more…he's always mildly amused.

"Are you sending me away?"

"Yes." He frowns, playfully, and leans in closer to sniff my hair.

"Ah, I see you've found a replacement me. Is that where you got the dog?"

"Why would I want to replace you? One is more than enough."

"But you have a new friend, don't you?" I snort.

"Define friend." He lets go, hands balled into fists at his side.

"Fine."

XXX

You know, I usually like work, but this is too good. I mean this is _too good_. First, tonight all I'm doing are the easy songs, the ones I love so much, that I've done so much, I can do without having to think. Second, the only other thing I'm doing is communication with the backstage projectors (screens that show messages I type on the computer, which show up on either side of the stage, leaving the microphone system open for singing). We don't really function like your usual stage. I glance to my left, and notice an awkward flickering: _"Blue light malfunction, backstage left (?)"_

Now I'm starting on an old Sarah Noni Metzner song, the first one I ever did at the Dome. Ah, nostalgia, how you haunt me. That might be the best thing here: the fact that I can have my voice heard by so many people, without ever having to face any of them or their judgment. Just for the heck of it, I peek out from the curtain to see the faces of the people who think that this early twenties blonde is singing her heart out. That's when I see them. Not all in the same place, but these people are those that I've learned to spot. Firstly there's Mick St. John, lurking in the back of the crowd with narrowed eyes and crossed arms. Then there's Fitzroy and Vicki, looking shady and auspicious (respectively) in the middle of the crowd, though moving in my direction. Nikolai is sitting on a very tall tree, one arm draped over a bent knee casually, surveying the crowd. Lastly Mort's sitting on what looks like…a dumpster? Swinging his legs beck and forth and reading a book. Gee whiz, where's Angel, he's missing out on all the fun. I told you. Bait.

All right, are there any logical reasons for all four of them to be here at the same time? I'm not too worried about Mort, for whatever reason he's here. It's the dark wavy haired Europeans that have me concerned. St. John, he's from…California? New York? One of those. A PI as far as I know, so he's probably reacting to suspicious behavior on my part. Same likely goes for Fitzroy, so at least those are reasons I'm capable of dealing with. Nik…that I don't want to think about.

And I don't have to, because I can hear a conversation just offstage on the grass. I motion to one of the other stagehands for him to take over and move in their direction.

"…she's a vampire's whore. They get a thrill out of being bitten – "

"Why can't I just be a regular whore?" I ask brightly, leaning up against a pillar.

Both of them whip around to stare at me. He recovers first and smiles. Charming. Too bad you were too enamored with your girlfriend's heartbeat to hear me before.

"Hi. I'm Vicki Nelson, this is my…partner –"

"We've met." He cuts her off. She snorts.

"Of course you have. Course you have." She grumbles.

"Not like that." He adds defensively.

"Can I help either of you with something? Because believe you me, it happens that just this moment I have a LOT of stuff to deal with." I chance a glance at the other three remaining vampires. Uh oh. Mordecai and Nikolai (crap, they rhyme) are glaring daggers at each other, though I'm unsure of what they know of each other as of yet.

"We have reason to believe you may know something." Says Fitzroy. He looks at me pointedly, ignoring the look from his partner, but that isn't very helpful. I know a lot of things.

"What something?"

"About…" she looks up to her partner. "She the one…?" He nods.

"Vampires in the area."

"Oh, more than you know."

"What does that mean, exactly?" Henry asks me, eyes narrowing. I cough awkwardly.

"Um…define...'area'." I rub the back of my neck with my hand.

He glances to Vicki and back to me.

"By 'area' I mean the city."

"Well, how should…I…know…" St. John is striding over here, looking mighty purposeful.

"Counting you there are four in the crowd, other than that there may or may not be one to three unipartas in the area because we're still waiting for confirmation and you can't smell them because you're only territorial around those of your species which are bipartas thank you have a nice night!" I push them away. I will NOT be having some male ego confrontation thing going on here. Clearly Nelson has plenty more questions for me, but I run up the stairs to hide behind the side curtain and I'm sure she has better judgment than to follow me.

Oops. Guess I was wrong.

"Hang on! Information like that can't be covered by 'a little bird told me. How does a music junky come across tips?" Music junky? _Music junky_?! Well, she has a point.

"Oh, believe me, if I could avoid them I would." With that I disappear behind the curtain, only to reappear at the count of 50 to see one rather miffed Mick St. John waiting for me.

"Mr. St. John! What a surprise!" _Now go away, please._ He looks at me, deadly serious.

"…So! What brings you up north?"

"Oh, I'll give you three guesses."

"Well, I doubt that you're chasing a lead."

"I am, in a sense. You." I must say that I'm a bit taken aback by this. Now, what could this one possibly want with me?

"What could you possibly want with me?"

"For one, I think you know more than you're letting on."

"I think that you do to. You don't see me chasing fireflies." _Also, leave._

"I think it would be best if you shared this information with me."

"Or?"

"Or? Or, I'll have to take it from you." He quirks an eyebrow ominously.

"And how would you go about doing that?"

"I have...ways." _And I have a four hundred pound hellhound at my disposal. What's your point?_

We're at an impasse for a few long, awkward moments. He seems about to narrow his eyes and angrily sweep away when I remember something.

"Say, you haven't been eating Goth girls, have you?"

"_What_?"

"See, it's just that they keep on…you know, probably getting eaten. Or, being…sucked or fed off of…yeah, fed off of, and then disappearing. Far as we can tell it's by a Caucasian male with wavy dark hair and a pea coat." I eye his pea coat pointedly.

"_NO_…So you do know. What we are."

"Oh, shit yes." _Uh. Did I say that part out loud?_

"And what are you going to do with this information, exactly?"

"Oh, I don't see how that's any of your business." We aren't supposed to tell people about the organization unless necessary, just saying that 'we're looking into…' works, normally.

He just sighs. "Fine." To try and assuage his suspicions, I smile at him. I also have this awkward habit of wanting to grin every time there's a serious moment. Right then: two down, two to go. But I have to get back to work now, Nikolai and Mort can wait for an hour or two.

XXX

To be continued...or, possibly not, depends on my mood.

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	3. In Which Our Heroine Sees a Movie

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except for the stuff that I do own. Which isn't much. You know what, screw it, I own nothing.

I've calmed down a bit since earlier, though my whole attitude was off slightly, knowing that there were two goodness knows how old…vampires in the crowd that knew of each other. So when I've wrapped myself with a sweater and trotted outside, I'm unsure how relieved to be when I see only Mort standing there, hands stuffed in his coat pockets. He's dressed in his usual attire today, consisting of brown khaki pants and a white tunic, not unlike those that you see stereotypical Indians wearing in movies. When I asked him about it once, he replied merely "'S comfortable. I dunno. Easy to wash."

"My God, did you _see_ that today? FOUR! You know, counting me. But still. FOUR!" Wow. He almost sounds…excited. He laughs.

"C'mon." He jerks his head towards the road.

"I have an idea."

"What kind of idea?"

"Well, we don't have anything to do tonight and I don't want you mad at me anymore."

"I was mad at you?"

"I guess not, just…you know, you were mad about something yesterday."

"Just cranky. You know. My neck's still sore." That's when I realize how terribly fitting it is that I should get bitten on the right side of the neck, where my shoulder was hurting yesterday.

"Right, well, let's go back to my place. I have a movie I think you'd like." This is a bit of a shocker to me, as I've never actually been to his flat before. I'd thought it was an unspoken rule that it was off limits.

"Where…where exactly do you live?" He laughs softly.

"It's better if you see." That's when I realize that we're heading for the outskirts of the city.

"You don't…live in a shack or a hut or something, do you?"

"No."

"Underground?" He laughs.

"Oh, yeah, me and the mole people, we're _tight_."

"Pff, don't knock it till you try it, buddy." As nice as it is to be in this constant again, I can't help but notice something missing.

"Where's Bolt?"

"Hunting."

"Oh. He, uh…" My neighbor's cat went missing a few days ago.

"Squirrels, Jo. _Squirrels_." It's then that I realize we've stopped walking, in front of an abandoned school.

"You live…"

"In John Cast High School. Yep."

"It's abandoned, right? Please tell me it's abandoned."

"No. I hide in lockers during the day and scare the freshmen."

"Fine, dumb question."

XXX

It's actually pretty nice in here, the rooms that he's bothered to fix up. He tells me that he only lives here because it's more convenient, can't have those working for what is, essentially, the vampire government, living in apartments with artists and actors and whatnot. The school, it turns out, was a private school anyways, and the land it's on was bought up by Pollox. If some 'creepy guy' wants to live in his school, than Pollox can feel free to stop him.

So we've settled into a room that used to be a classroom but is now his office. It doesn't look like he's changed it much at all, there's still a desk at the front and student chairs everywhere, but he doesn't seem to mind. One door over is what used to be a media room, where the movie is currently loading and figuring out just how it plans to project itself onto the wall.

"So, you have any more on this free radical stuff?"

"Not exactly. Well, sort of."

"I'll take what I can get."

"All righty then! Reproduction!" I stare at him for a second.

"Um, I realize that this is a high school, but believe me, I know how it works."

"Nah, I meant vampire…wise. Esque. Whatever."

"Sure, fine." I raise one eyebrow dubiously.

"Look, it's not that awkward. Instead of reproducing like…well, virtually every other multicellular creature on the planet, we're parasitic. Sort of."

"Is anything _not_ 'sort of' with you?"

"Sort of. Okay, so, instead of reproducing…you know, 'youngins', we find the healthiest and most appealing of the human species and turn them into our species, which is why vampires are pretty much human with some base changes. I won't go into genetics here, because it'd just be babble."

"Damn right. Keep going and keep it English."

"All right, so, that's why vampires are so notoriously romantic and shit. Whichever human appeals to us the most must also be able to have a certain amount of sway over other humans should they become a vampire. So, ones that are more intelligent or have certain superior aspects that are genetic are ones that we feel the…urge to…you know, turn. To add their superior genes to our vampire repertoire. At least, in theory. See, that's why we can't feel." I stare at him blankly.

"Right, because that doesn't need elaboration." He thwacks me in the arm.

"Shut up. Okay, you know how we have better than usual senses?"

"Yes."

"Well, clearly it's not another case of the _Astyanax_ blind cave fish, since we still have all of our senses. But in order to more thoroughly register them, part of the section of our brain that registers complex emotions like guilt has been forfeited." Is it sad that this makes perfect sense to me?

"So, any complex emotion you do feel would be a lot stronger in a human. Or, any strong emotion in a person would only be mild to you." I finish.

"Yes! Exactly! Ha!" He smiles.

"So, what can you feel in bulk?"

"All the things that have been dulled by time. Fear and lust are among the top contenders."

I wince as Nik comes to mind.

"That must be nice." He smiles, almost to himself.

"It has its advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes I miss fear." For this he receives a puzzled look. I would give anything to have my fear dulled, eliminated. That's one of many thrills that my life can do without.

"I know it isn't fun, but at least it let me feel something. Adrenaline, anticipation."

"So something that would make a human die of cardiac arrest would only make you flinch." He sighs and stares at the floor. Then again, I suppose this is a touchy subject.

"Hey, I think the movie's ready. Come on, you'll like it." He smiles at me and pulls me into the media room by my arm.

"Why, exactly, will I like it so much?"

"Because it's kind of similar to what we were just talking about."

"…you didn't rent Dracula, did you?"

"Nope."

"Something with 'red', 'dark', 'night', 'blood', or 'desire' in the name?"

"Gods no."

"Well then, how does it relate to behavioral characteristics of impossible creatures?" We plop down on the couch. I sit cross-legged with my hands tucked under my ankles, he sprawls out over the couch with his legs stretched out in front of him, hands at his sides. As the movie begins, I realize that it's very familiar. Have I seen this before?

"Oh! I know what this is! Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real! I've seen it before." He looks up at me, exasperated and a little embarrassed.

"You have?"

"Yes."

He lets out a sigh. "Well, crap."

I just snort and lean back, grinning. "That's okay, it's one of my favorites."

"Oh, you jerk, you've seen everything." He grunts, snaking an arm around my waist and shaking me in mock-anger. I cross my arms and pout. We sit there for a little while, me fake-pouting and him fake-frowning.

Twitch. I hold it back.

Twitch. Come on, you first. I won't give in.

Twitch. Twitch. He grins first, though I break almost immediately after.

"You always beat me at that."

"Yeah. After all your years, you really ought to have better control over your emotions," I tease.

"I do! I usually do. Gah! How do you do that? You have this…this face!"

"Well, frankly, it'd be creepy if I didn't have one, dear." He glares at me and stretches his arms out on either side of the couch, looking, I must say, extremely casual. I have no idea why, but all of a sudden I start giggling like a madman. It breaks into full-on laughter and I can't seem to stop. My sides are hurting and I can feel tears forming in the corners of my eyes.

Luckily, it seems he can't help but shake just a bit with stifled laughter, smiling and making a bizarre choked amusement sound. "Easy there, champ. Your tearing up." He tells me, just before leaning forward and wiping the tears out of my eyes.

"Ah, shut it. I don't cry." I joke.

"You don't?" Oh poo, you always did take everything too seriously.

"No." He frowns a little and cocks his head.

"Ever?"

"Not since I was fifteen. Why?"

"What happened when you were fifteen that made all other sad things obsolete?"

"Why the sudden fascination?" He doesn't say anything, he just stares at me. I stare back at him with equal cool resolve, but we both know the eventual outcome. He smiles first, I snap first.

"When…I…when I was fifteen. I remember one Tuesday I came home, I'd had a pretty okay day. Nothing all that amazing, a pretty average day, you know? So the first thing I did was work on homework for a few hours, then after dinner I went up to my room to read. But…for some reason…I cried. I cried hard and long, I cried a river, I soaked my pillow with inexplicable sadness. I didn't know why, but I couldn't stop, I knew that now, _now_, I had to cry, so I did. I cried myself to sleep that night." I'm expecting him to stop me at any point, to say 'sorry I asked', or 'you don't need to tell me', but he's just watching. Watching and waiting. I open my mouth to try and form words, but I haven't revisited this memory for years, and my voice is about to crack. He places a mildly comforting hand on my shoulder, but still doesn't tell me to stop.

"The next day, in the middle of taking an English test, someone tells me that my mother's been hit by a car." The hand tightens and he looks like he's about to say something comforting, but it's too late to stop now.

"I finish the test and get through the rest of the day, all without shedding a tear. I was fine. Just…completely fine. I didn't cry, I didn't sink into a pit of despair, I finished the test and the rest of school and when I got to the hospital I just sat down and did my homework. It was like the day before I knew that this was going to happen, so I cried when it was convenient."

"Jo, I –"

"It's okay." But he can see I'm not. Carefully, tentatively, like he's not sure exactly what he's doing, he leans forward and wraps me into a oxygen-choking hug. I'd pull away, but right now I'm afraid that if he lets go I'll just fall down. Instead, I wrap my arms around him in turn, placing my chin on his shoulder. For me, the process of hugging merely involves waiting long enough. I don't revel in the closeness of another person, I just stare at what's behind him or her for a few moments. I can see one of those old inspirational posters. All but one of a field of sunflowers is facing away from me, and one has, presumably, turned it's face up to the sun. I can't read the saying, but I imagine it's something along the lines of the Gandhi quote: "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." I always hated those posters.

Finally, I pull away first, though not as far as before.

"Sorry. It's just that normally I don't…"

"Recount childhood trauma?" Though we're facing each other, his arm is still around both of my shoulders. I laugh sadly and settle myself so that I'm facing the projector screen and leaning onto his shoulder with my arms crossed. He smells like soap and old paper. It's nice to have a clean vampire who reads on your side.

Thankfully, he has the good sense to shut the hell up and keep watching the movie.

XXX

_Though I do not consciously recognize my surroundings, they seem hauntingly familiar. I trot impatiently down a damp hallway made of stone brick, the floor is simply dirt. It smells of earth and something else, something sickly, possibly urine or puke. I try not to gag, and when I reach the end of the hallway I see a man wearing a chain mail shirt over a black tunic with black leggings. He looks down at me and smiles obediently, stepping aside. _

_That's when I realize that I'm not currently inhabiting my own body. Looking down, I'm wearing some type of stuffy, lace-laden, high-collared dress. I look down further to my feet to see that they, too, are covered by this dress, though near the bottom it is muddied and dirty. I smile slightly. But I walk forward, and despite not knowing where I am going, my body seems perfectly willing to take me there without my consent. As if this were a situation beyond my control, as if it were reliving the past according to its rules._

_I stop in front of what looks like an old prison cell, rusted iron bars vertically slicing the scene beyond. I can vaguely see a tall figure pacing back and forth at the very end of the cell, making small distressed noises. I sit down, cross-legged, on the dirt floor in front and watch, fascinated. I can see that he is male, and of a darker complexion than the European man I saw before. For a minute I break out of my character to look at myself again. I am young, my mid teens at the most, and I have light, frothy brown curls pinned into mock submission by far too many pins. _

_"You come here to mock me as well?" Asks the prisoner. He steps into the light, his face stone cold, hands wrapped around the bars on either side of his face. To my shock, it is the face of Mordecai, thus proving that this is in fact an awkward dream. _

_"No," I reply, my voice the same as in reality, though with a tinge of British accent._

_"Then why have you come?" He asks me coldly, eyes suspicious._

_"I'm curious." His mouth is open slightly in shock, surprised by my answer._

_"Curious? What about?"_

_"I've heard tell that you are…that you are a vampire. Is this true?" I ask._

_He chuckles bitterly. "Yes. Yes, it is true. A monster no less."_

_"If you are a monster, how do you look at me without wanting my blood immediately?"_

_"Because I can control my hunger. Gods know I've had enough time to learn." The look on his face softens slightly._

_"Tell me, girl, if you do not wish to stare at me like the spectacle most have me branded as, why are you here?" I stand up and touch the knuckles of one of his hands that grips the bar angrily. His grip loosens slightly._

_"Because you are not a monster. You do not deserve to die."_

_"I'm glad you realize that, but what good does it do me? I await a burning at the stake come morning." He says this softly, the fire in his eyes dying before my eyes. Hopeless, to him, the situation is hopeless. For doing nothing other than live, he will be killed._

AN: I'd like anyone's opinion on the dream (sorry if no one realized that that was a dream. I took it for being sort of obvious.), because rereading this I'm wondering if I overdid it on the way of talking. Come to think of it, if anyone reading wants to be a beta…


	4. In Which Nothing Much Happens

I wake up with my head awkwardly resting on his chest. Luckily, however, he's still asleep. Given I have limited room to maneuver on a couch, I slowly raise my head and adjust my position until I'm crouched next to Mort and quietly leap off the couch, landing with a dull thud on the thick carpet. He doesn't wake up, but I'm not expecting him to. Bipartas conk out during the day, unipartas just sleep in freezers, and vispus can stay awake for days or weeks at a time, until they fall into a slumber for a day or two which is impossible to wake them from. Sometimes it lasts hours, though, and sometimes up to a week. The normal range, anyway.

I head down the hall to an area I noted previously to be a bathroom. After showering, I leave his house in the same clothes in which I arrived and head back to my flat to nurse a cold I feel coming on.

The first thing I do at home is make myself some breakfast. Nothing complicated, just a banana smoothie (with too much ice). After downing it and suffering through the inevitable brain-freeze, I curl up on my couch and start with the outright denial. Let's start off in a basic area, shall we?

I'm fine. Just bloody dandy.

I don't have a headache.

My watch does not need to be replaced.

That pillow was on the floor yesterday when I left.

"I'm sorry, I must have knocked it off and forgotten to replace it."

Nik's not in my house. I keep my face calm and emotionless, not betraying fear or shock. In fact, I'm mentally emotionless too: it's not shock, not denial, but I don't even get that twisted stomach that is so often a syndrome of his presence. He looks at me with a sad, remorseful smile, and sits down in a chair opposite me, his hands on his knees amiably.

"I wanted to apologize." His eyebrows knit together in a mask of innocence and regret.

"That's nice."

"I've changed, Joanna," he pleads with me.

"In the last day?" For once, I have the upper hand, and I intend on milking it.

"Please. Just listen." He lets out a long, slow breath and looks at the floor.

"You owe me at least that much, having killed me." I let a bitter, choked laugh escape.

"Hah." He wipes the mischievous smirk off his face and goes back to the now apparently default puppy-kicked-in-the-ribs face.

"Please, Jo?"

"Fine." Satisfied temporarily, a relieved relaxation of muscles passes quickly over his face.

"I thought I didn't care. Not about the dying, but about you leaving. I thought it wouldn't matter to me at all." Oh, great. AND….cue 'My Immortal' by Evanescence!

"But then…I started to think about you. Not that often, maybe once every few days it was a fleeting thought…of…of the good times." I try hard not to listen to a word he's saying. Firstly, I'm pretty sure this speech was on a TV show. Secondly, it's dumb. Third, I'm beginning to believe it. Oh Lord in heaven, what's wrong with me?

"Jo? Are you listening?" I nod numbly.

"Well, then…it became more than fleeting. And more often. Soon, I just…I wanted to find you. For…I don't know. Closure? A second chance? It's up to you. Please, Jo."

Wait, what? When did he become normal? I confess, I'm a little creeped out. Plus: shit. Relationship crap. You see? Shit. This doesn't happen to me. And: will you SHUT UP?! I don't freaking care! You know what, I don't where perfume, but right now I wish I did because then I'd have something to blame for all the bloodsucking beasties that keep showing up! Come ON!!

I stare at him, trying to keep the indignation and outright shock from my face.

Oh god. I'm going to puke.

I jerk once and hold my hand to my mouth, then run to the bathroom. Thankfully, I don't actually puke, though I convulse over the commode repeatedly.

He stands over me, one hand over my back moving up and down methodically.

"I'm sorry, I, uh, I didn't know you'd react like that. Didn't know I was that repulsive." He can't keep the hint of amusement from his voice.

Taking a long, slow breath, I brace myself with my arms on either side of the toilet (the lid is closed) and stand. We're face to face, and just beneath his mild amusement I can see true concern. At least, I hope it's true concern. He places a hand on either side of my face and tilts it to the side, like a doctor with a patient, examining my face.

"Are you all right?" Why is everyone so concerned with that? That's one of those non-questions that people ask other people. "How are you?" is another one. You aren't supposed to answer "Well, I'm bloody awful. My dog was almost run over and I have a cold but I'm out of sick days at work, my internet keeps screwing up and the water in my flat is never more than lukewarm. AND, now my ankle hurts." You're supposed to answer "Fine, thanks. And you?" even if you're not, and you don't care.

"Yeah. I'm fine." Hell no, I'm not fine. Why are you acting human? Why do you insist on making this so damn…difficult? He sighs and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. I can't help but feel just a bit weak at the knees due to his close proximity, but by bad ankle gives out first. I fell off my bike when I was ten, since then it's always been a little bit weaker than my left one. I fall down on one side, which actually proves to be supremely awkward, and he quickly shifts his hands under my armpits and raises me back up carefully.

"Careful now." A black chunk of hair falls in front of his face. He smiles, and for once it's a smile free of anger, or hunger, or danger. It's just him, smiling. At me.

"Hm." I inform him out loud. Slowly, tentatively, ready to pull back, he pulls me to him and hugs me. Softly and gently, he squeezes a bit and I think I feel him press his face into my shoulder. What is this, Hug The Invalid Day? Would you two quit it?! Unwilling to wait for him to finish, I pull away; it doesn't feel right.

"Nik, I'm sorry. It's just…I didn't mean…Sorry." I stammer a bit. His jaw clenches for an imperceptible moment, and I'm almost certain his eyes flash white for a second.

"No. You don't have to say anything." His nostrils flare for just a second, and he closes his eyes. I'm afraid to move for fear that his predatory instinct will take over and he'll chase fleeing prey… Little do I know there's already a predator in the room, and I'm not the one who should be worried.

"Bolt!" I screech as he leaps out from behind the couch (how on earth did he fit back there, anyway?) and lands with a THUNK! on Nikolai's chest.

"Bloody murderous HELL!" Nik shouts, and I'm pretty sure that I hear some ominous cracking sounds. His breathing becomes ragged and forced, but I'm not too worried; he's survived much worse.

"Bolt, it's okay. Bolt! Don't hurt him! Step away from the vampire." The dog bares his teeth and hunches his shoulder blades, but reluctantly steps off. I try not to shudder at the bone poking through Nik's chest, and opt for staring blindly at the ceiling.

"Are you going to be all right?" Still staring up.

"…yes…I'll…_ugh_…"

"You sure?"

"Cover your ears."

"Why?"

I hear a loud snap as he resets his ribs.

"MOTHER --!!!!" He shouts, followed by several pained grunts.

"Oh jeez! You could've _warned_ me!"

"I did!" I take a long, slow breath, and look down. His navy blue t shirt now has a dark, wet stain, and I'm relieved to see that the chest beneath is perfectly in tact. He's propped up on his elbows in the middle of my living room, panting slightly.

"So tell me. Do you always keep a killer guard dog handy behind your couch, you know, just in case?"

"Hey, the guy does what he does. Not my fault he reads subconscious signals." He sighs and runs a hand through his hair before standing up. He looks at me through lowered lashes and, exasperated, puts his hand on his forehead.

"I'll leave now. Goodbye, Joanna." I'm not sure if he's done it purposefully, or if I'm just being paranoid, but I can hear a tinge of hatred in his voice. Understandably, he's just been crushed, but it still scares the living daylights out of me.

Still standing in the same place in the bathroom, I can vaguely hear the door slam behind me when he leaves. I shake my head and go to sit down in front of my computer. I deserve a night to myself.

XXX

_"Oh, well then. I assume you have something much more pleasant to talk about while standing outside of my cell?" His voice is harsh, but his expression is hopeless and relenting._

_"Why are you wearing so many rings?" He is, too. Six or seven, none of them excessively jeweled, all hammered metal. Two or three have a polished stone, it looks like obsidian or onyx._

_"I've collected them over time. Sentimental value, in a twisted sense." He fingers one absentmindedly._

_"It's a bit excessive, don't you think?"_

_"Is it? I've never really put much thought into it." He begins to slide a few off of his hands, leaving only two: one is simple silver with a solid black band around it, the other looks like branches._

_"Is that better?" I laugh._

_"Yes. I think two is a good number."_

_"All right, then. I promise you I will never wear more than two."_

_"Will it always be the same two?"_

_"I doubt I'll change my mind in the next few hours. Is that really what you want to talk to me about?"_

"_How is it that you work?" I cock my head to the side and look up at him, and sit down cross-legged on the floor._

_"How…how do I work? I have no job at the moment. I was a locksmith."_

_"No, you dolt, how do your kind function? How do vampires work?"_

_"With difficulty," he replies with a sly smile. I look at him sadly._

_"You don't know, do you? You know what you are, but not why."_

_"I…it's…it's simply that I've never applied any thought to the idea."_

_"How do you think you might work?"_

_"What part of us?"_

_"Any part. I wouldn't know."_

_"Would you like to? That much, I can tell you." He smiles sincerely, brown eyes glittering in the soft torchlight. Hard to remember, now, that he is a prisoner._

_"Please?" He chuckles softly. "Gladly, lady."_

_"My name is Mizilca. You can call me Miz."_

_"Very well, Mizilca…Miz. Is that Romanian?"_

_"As far as I know!" We both laugh._

_"As you can likely guess, we have fangs that descend. Normally we can control when they do, though if our hunger is pressing they show regardless. We have superior olfactory senses, as well as better vision and hearing."_

_"Do you need to kill to eat?"_

_"Absolutely not. In fact, we need not feed on humans at all."_

_"But you do."_

_"Some do. I've found it's more convenient to simply buy chickens." I hold my hand to my mouth to suppress a girlish giggle._

_"You live off chicken blood? Is it because you don't want to feed off people?"_

_"Well, it's because I thought something like this might happen if I did." I don't know whether to laugh or comfort him. He lets out a bitter "Ha.", followed by more of a grimace than a smile._

_"Then why were you imprisoned? If you weren't feeding off people, you're harmless."_

_"I'm not so sure that they're concerned with that. I was caught with…a chicken."_

_"Can't you escape?"_

_"I'd be found again. This was inevitable." I stare at him for a few seconds, disbelieving._

_"So, that's it? You're just going to give up because it isn't worth it?"_

I wake up teary-eyed.

XXX

Ah, maintenance day. How your horrors and hopes have taunted my waking and sleeping hours all the week!

Fucking curtains.

There's this device, a sort of panel of buttons, for controlling the three different sets of curtains on the stage. It's much easier than having to do it by cranking a rope, unless of course it breaks. For the fourth time. THIS MONTH.

I'm fairly certain that the circuit is just faulty somewhere, but that requires having to find where. I pry the lid off of the panel to stare at the mess of red, yellow, and black wires. An electrical bird's nest. I begin the Epic Search For The Problem, however it would appear that that will have to wait.

"No, really, I think you know her. A woman, her name is..." I hear a rustling of paper.

"Joanna. Joanna Lovett." Wow, I so love my last name.

"Nope, sorry, no one by that name here. You could try tomorrow when we're open."

"'S okay Jon. You can let him through," I tell the Dome's very own human bulldog. By now, I recognize Fitzroy's voice. So, great. I'm just going round and round the species circle. I walk towards him, my ankle-length skirt swishing comfortably against my legs. I'm also wearing a green t shirt that says 'Pickles are cucumbers soaked in evil.' Like hell it matches, but no one's going to see me that hasn't seen me in worse.

"Can I help you with something?" Please tell me he's not hungry. No, this seems more professional: his face is dead serious, jaw set stubbornly. Actually, I've never understood what people meant when they said 'so-and-so had a stubborn jaw line', but I guess this is it.

"Ms. Lovett." YES!! I've ALWAYS wanted someone to call me that!! VICTORY!! Cough.

"I…need your help with something."

"Why?"

"It's my – why?"

"Yes, why. I wouldn't think that I'd be the most logical person to go to for an actual problem that you have. You know, unless you really, REALLY want to throw a party."

"I know about your connections, that man is more than just your friend."

"_Okay_, Your Grace, just what is THAT supposed to mean?"

"He's your partner. You two…you…monitor us. Make sure that we don't…let anything get out of hand. Take care of strays." Ooh. 'Strays'. That's a nice way of putting it. Still, I tense, preparing myself for a Mad Dash Up A Nearby Tree if necessary. When other vampires find out about Pollox and his employees, they get…well, miffed is another of those lovely little understatements.

Obviously noting my shifted position, he adds "I'm not here about that. In fact, I think it is necessary and productive to have a form of…control. Beyond the police force." He says the words 'police force' bitterly, and I wonder if there's something behind that. I don't grow more tense or relax, but we stare at each other for…seconds? Minutes? I don't know.

"It's my partner. Vicki Nelson. She's gone missing, and I believe that she may have been taken by other vampires. I was hoping your organization would help me."

"Do you know what we call ourselves, our organization?"

"No, I don't. I just know it exists."

"Well, it's not the Vampire Hotline. We don't just give out information. Give me a reason."

"I have reason to believe it was by vampires looking to pick a fight."

"Yes, well, that's all you lot do anyways." I mutter, though I know that with his superior hearing he can hear me crystal clear.

He takes a deep breath. "Please. I need your help." It was the please that caught me. So much like someone I knew once.

I sigh. "All right. What do you need?" He looks relieved.

"Just…if you get any information, anything about the new vampires or old ones suddenly making any decisions, anything that might help…call me." He hands me a card with a phone number written in neat script. I shake my head.

"I'm not really the one you'll want for this information. Talk to Mort." I take out one of the pens in my jacket pocket and write his cell number on the back. "He's more likely to get a hunch first."

"Is there somewhere I can get a hold of him?"

"I…doubt it." I chuckle at the thought of giving him the address and seeing his expression when he showed up in front of the abandoned school.

"Fair enough." He runs a hand through his long, curly hair.

"Thank you. Thank you so much, for your help." He offers up a hand for shaking, which I do. I can't help but smile at this other side; the one that actually cares for someone beyond what he can get out of her. He's sincerely worried.

"I'll look into it as best I can. Really." I tell him with conviction. The way he's smiling, like I've just told him that there was a miscommunication and, actually, the world won't explode for another few billion years, sorry for the inconvenience, thank you for your business. Perhaps I was quick to assume that he was mindless – just melodramatic.

"You know, you're rather different than I imagined."

"Gee, I'm having some awkward flashbacks of guidance counseling in school."

"You aren't as frail as I thought."

"Yeah, well, I'm not that easy to kill."

"Goodbye, Ms. Lovett."

"Johnny."

"What?"

"Joanna's my first name. Everyone calls me Johnny, friend or foe or anywhere in between."

"Well, Johnny, I'm not sure whether to be insulted or flattered."

"You can take it either way, or no way at all. Goodbye, Mr. Fitzroy." I turn and make for a dramatic exit.

"Nice shirt!" He calls. Oh, bully. I turn around and cross my arms, glaring the living nightlights out of him until he turns and leaves. Oh, that…that's just great. He's got a pea coat too.

You know, when I was a teenager I really loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Just totally loved it. I taped it and sometimes I'd even be desperate enough to act out some of the scenes, or write fan fiction about it (that was ONE time, ONE.).

It's all been downhill from there.


	5. Which is Short and hopefully Sad

XXX

When I get home, I realize how dreadfully tired I am. I go to my bedroom and absentmindedly change into sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I yawn and place my hands on my back, which is beginning to hurt. But that can wait; I have something to do. Trouble is, I don't quite know what it is.

I sit down on my bed and stare blankly at my wall for a few minutes. It might have been hours for all the attention I'm paying. Then it starts: a single, fat tear rolls down my cheek. Soon chased by others of its kind, and my cheeks have become a racetrack for my tears, seeing how many can get how far how fast. Inexplicably, they fall, wetting my clothing, my sheets, my pillow. I feel this immense, pressing sadness. I fear my shoulders will break for the weight now on them.

I place my head in my hands and begin to sob, softly, my cries muffled and my body shaking with anguish.

I cry myself to sleep that night.

XXX

_"So, that's it? You're just going to give up because it isn't worth it?" He stares at me, shocked. Silence ensues for a few moments._

_"I…yes. Yes, that's exactly it." I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off._

_"Please, don't try and convince me otherwise. I've accepted my fate."_

_"But you can't do that! You can't stop caring!"_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because. Because…because I care. Because it's unjust. You can't let these people have the satisfaction of robbing you of life against your will."_

_"Well, then, I suppose I'll just have to go willingly, won't I?" I choke back a sob. It kills me to see anyone in so desolate a situation; having given up hope for anything but a slow death. It creates turns in my gut I didn't know possible. _

_"No." I tell him quietly. "I won't let you do that." We lock eyes for an unimaginably long moment, and I don't know how but I know that here my eyes are a pure, untainted green. He seems about to say something, but changes his mind at the last moment._

_"It seems that you won't have any choice in the matter, regardless, Mizilca." He informs me softly. I turn in my position on the floor, looking behind me. One of the guards, who I now realize is simply a village inhabitant in dusty chain mail, is coming down the long hallway with a rope and a black hood. Coming for him. _

_That's when I realize that the sun is rising, and we've spent the entire night conversing about things that now seem trivial, if not meaningless. I had pushed the thought of his execution to the back of my mind. I suppose…some part of me had refused to believe that this time would even come. That no one would truly be awful enough to kill him, completely unjustified. _

_I can feel my heart breaking for the expression of acceptance on his face._

_No. _

_That is when I know what I must do for him._

_"Come, vampire. It is time for you to die," sneers the guard._

_"It was not his fault." I plea._

_"He was caught drinking the blood of a fowl!"_

_"A fowl! He didn't hurt anyone!"_

_"He would have, Miss, if we'd let him go free long enough." I hadn't expected that to work, regardless. _

_"I made him do it." The guard is shocked, and Mort…the man who looks like Mort, is confused._

_"Miss, I realize that you may think this, but he chose his path of darkness on his own."_

_"No, you don't understand. I made him do it. I cast a spell. I forced him think he needed blood. The fact that he chose to only use a useless bird attests to his strength!" That is when Mordecai realizes what I am doing. _

_"No!" He screeches, clawing at the bars. "No, I can't let you do this!"_

_The guard stares at me, long and hard. "You realize the weight of the words you speak, girl?"_

_"I do. My conscience will not let me accept this injustice for my actions."_

_"Please, please, Mizilca, don't. I'm begging you, please, please." His eyes are wet with suppressed tears, and it breaks my heart._

_"You see this man's reaction to my confession? He does not force me to speak this. Even he himself still believes that it was his own choice." I try hard to keep my voice from breaking, though it takes much force. I can still hear Mordecai's anguished pleas in the background. "Please, please…"_

_"Then it is you, girl, who will burn at the stake for your deeds. He will go free. You realize this, and you still say it?" The guard tells me._

_"Yes." I reply quietly. I hear a choked sob, and turn back to him. Doing my best to smile bravely, though I know my wet eyes betray me, and I grasp his hand in mine. _

_"Don't worry." I whisper. "At least this way, my death is willing."_

_"Please. Please, don't do this. Please."_

_"I have no doubt that I will see you again."_

_"I am begging you!" He whispers, placing his other hand on our firm handshake so that my hand is cupped between both of his. He puts his forehead against the bars, breathing heavily. His tears run freely now, and it's all I can do not to hug him to my chest and assure him that everything will be alright. I pull my hand from his two, and compliantly allow the black bag to be put over my head._

_As I am led away, blind to my surroundings and accepting of my fate, I hear open, unrestrained sobs behind me. But I do not turn around._

A/N: I realize how terribly self-absorbed this sounds, but I never imagined getting this attached to my characters. I was actually actively sad when I wrote this. Admittedly I was purposefully looking for the cliched, angsty and depressing songs so that may or may not have had something to do with it. In a way it's encouraged me to keep writing. So, I hope that shows through in the next chapter. Man, I gotta stop listening to Evanescence. I don't even like Evanescence.


	6. In Which The Title Is Finally Explained

I wake up to a loud, obnoxious and overdone knock on my door.

"Who is it?"

"A very bad person who is going to steal all of your valuables, bind you, gag you and hold you for ransom."

"Door's open." I can hear the distinct thudding of Bolt's bottled thunder feet, and though I don't hear Mort I know he's right next to him.

"Up. Up, sleepy head!" I had the covers drawn up over my face and the blankets tucked in under my feet, a cocoon of comforter. Pale light had managed to filter its way through the ozone layer, clouds, my window, and my blankets to hit me with a soft glow and a rather rude awakening.

"…no." I answer. I hug my knees in anticipation of what I know is coming.

"Well then, I suppose you would need encouragement." Dog or blankets, I wonder?

THUNK.

Dog, then. Bolt has jumped up onto my bed and is prancing around like some type of poofy Chihuahua. He 'accidentally' steps on me a few times, though not with his full weight.

"Okay! JEEZ! I'm up!"

"Yeah, I think we got that."

"OW!" I leap out of the bed, wearing paisley pajama pants and a black t shirt. We stare at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds.

"What?" He asks me. Oh, come on, man.

"…I don't know, do you maybe wanna leave the room while I get dressed?" I answer sarcastically.

"Oh! Oh. Right. Leave…uh, leaving." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder and takes an awkward step backwards before turning around and closing the door.

I do really need to take a shower, but that can wait. I hurriedly dress myself in one of those, whaddya call 'em? Collared shirts, and jeans. I don't even bother with shoes. (I only have two pairs anyway, counting my slippers, which are really just glorified socks.)

I walk out into my living room (well, really more of a living space) and plop down on the couch next to him, trying to ignore the comments.

"Gee whiz, Johnny, no need to dress up for me."

"What?"

"Flannel, Joanna?"

"_What_?" My voice goes up an octave indignantly and cracks. I grin.

"So, what exactly justifies you sicking the dog on me at…" Oh, jeez, 8:00 in the morning?

"Confirmed unis."

"U…unis?"

"An abbreviation for unipartas. I don't know, I'm trying it out." I stare at him.

"So, I guess that one's off the table, huh?"

"Yeah."

"U-Ps? Ups?"

"Just stick with unipartas."

"Right, well, we've got a confirmation of a three new Ups in the area, all of which are newly turned. The last one killed their sire." Oh, he though he was going to get away with that, did he?

"The next time you say 'Ups', 'UPs', or 'unis', I'll punch you."

"You could try."

"I could succeed."

"Point being, we have to find them and either teach them or…you know…"

"Yeah." Killing isn't something he likes to talk about. Death, in general, is a touchy subject, and I don't know why. For someone who is a self-proclaimed 'Undead beasty type creature', he was remarkably reluctant around it.

"So, we have a lot of bullshit to do today, is the main point I'm trying to make." He explains further.

"Yay!" I reply in girly tones, leaning back on the couch. I try to hide it, but I love the days when we just stay at my house and work on location crap. Well, bullshit.

XXX

"Naw, not New York. New York was like…you know, it was last decade."

"Pff. New York was like _so_ last decade." He repeats mockingly.

"Oh, shut up, you glorified leech."

"Bah!"

"So, if it isn't in these cities," I indicate the ones marked with red Xs on the map. "Where have we not looked?"

"We've skimped on the west coast. Plus, I'm pretty much willing to bet they aren't from the Midwest." I giggle as the thought of a vampire-cowboy comes to mind.

"Well, gee, dear, I'm glad to know that impending doom is so amusing."

"'Kay. West coast. So, California?"

"I suppose. Or, you know, Oregon or Washington. Just saying."

"San Francisco?"

"I don't actually see why not. Onto the list that one goes."

"Fine, where else…where…LA?"

"Maybe..."

"So, put it in the 'maybe' column. Sheesh." He thwacks me in the arm.

"Shut up. You need to stop being so calm around ambush predators." He indicates my pike cichlid tank, Bolt, and himself. I chuckle and reach for my glass, next to his.

"Oh. Crap."

"What?"

"I was drinking cranberry juice." He stares at me in all seriousness for a few seconds, than bursts with outright laughter.

"Shut up! It's not that funny!"

"Of _all_ the things you could have chosen out of your fridge! Of ALL the things, Johnny, you pick the one that looks like blood!" He succumbs to another fit of laughter, fighting to keep from falling off the couch.

"Yeah, well, I'm not actually drinking the blood here, buddy." I point an accusing finger at the half-full glass of pig's blood on the table. At least, I think it's that one. I hope it's that one.

"Mine is the other one." Crap. He hands me my glass, and despite myself I take a nice long gulp.

"How old _are_ you, anyway?"

"Wow. Random, much?"

"That's avoiding."

"I told you. I'm 90-ish. I was born in 1918."

"Really." I cock one eyebrow quizzically.

"Really." He replies.

"Then why don't I believe you?" He looks at me and smiles, showing no tells of a liar. So, he's had plenty of time to learn.

"Because you're overly cynical?" He offers.

"How. Old. Are you." He stares at me.

"Man, I share the biggest, most personality defining point in my life with you and you won't even tell me your real age!" This man has an iron will. And so, we begin another Epic Staring Contest. For once, just once, I wish that maybe he'd quit trying to be so secretive. He's not, really, not that secretive considering that I already know most of his secrets (me being one of them), but when it comes to 'vampire stuff' – not biology, clearly that's not an issue, but the clichéd stuff that leads to general conbroodishness (contemplative-brooding) like his past, how he was turned, how old he is…nothing. Always avoidance with a joke or work. Are they all like this? Honestly. I couldn't have become a magnet for, I don't know, mermaids? Faeries? Even werewolves would work. Were-bunnies, maybe. I don't even care. Were-fish. Were-bacterium.

Were-cyanobacteria.

"A thousand." Were-squirrels. Wait, what?

"Wait, _what_?"

"One thousand years old. It's how old I am, give or take a few decades." He purses his lips and tries not to make eye contact.

"_Seriously_?"

"Yes. Are you happy now? I'm a creepy old guy."

"No, you were a creepy old guy when you were 90 and looked 30. A thousand is like…ancestral. Epic."

"You aren't scared of me?"

"That makes no sense. Why would your age make me more frightened of you?"

"Because…I don't know. I just assumed."

"Jeez, one thousand years old and you still assume things about people."

"Well, my assumptions are grounded in past experience."

"So, before you…you know…"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, who were you? What'd you do?" I ask, heading for my computer. Reading my intentions, he answers.

"You aren't going to find me in any Wikipedia articles, Johnny."

"Oh, come on! Everything's on Wikipedia!"

"Not me. Believe me."

"You haven't taken part in anything, any big events, wars, anything in the past _one thousand years_?"

"Laying low is the best way to avoid execution. Connections in high places, live in the low ones."

"Doesn't seem like any other vampires have that logic."

"You ever met any other vampires my age that don't live in the middle of nowhere?"

"I'm…I'm sure there are."

"Yeah. There are. The ones that jump from building to building in delusions of self-grandeur and talk to themselves in the mirror." I don't know whether to laugh or keep cry at that.

"So what were you that was so unworthy of a Wikipedia article?" He sighs, long and low.

"I…I was a goat herder. A nomadic goat herder."

"You did _what_?"

"I had goats. And I'd move around. With the goats." He sounds like he's talking to a five year old that's hard of hearing.

And I realize that it's not that funny, I do. It's an age old practice and there's nothing wrong with it. But, still…

"You herded _goats_?"

"Yes."

"You? _Goats_?"

"Yes, okay, I herded goats! I'm a terribly undignified and amusing vampire and I'm sorry I wasn't the prince of fucking Russia. Happy?" He answers, exasperated.

"Okay, jeez, no need to freak out on me." He tried to retain his frustrated exterior and fails miserably.

"Fine. If we're doing interrogation, do you need to know anything else?"

"How were you turned?"

"Pass." He looks away again.

"Why?"

"Pass, Johnny."

"Fine. Fine, fine, fine." We'll get to that eventually.

"What was your name? If you were Indian, I refuse to believe it was Mordecai."

"Oh, it's like Smith over there."

"I'm serious."

"I don't remember." I gape at him, open mouthed.

"You don't remember? How do you not remember?"

"Do remember anything from the beginning of your life?"

"That's different! The memory centers of my brain were underdeveloped!"

"And I can't use that excuse?"

"Not when you're in your twenties." He shakes his head.

"It's been too long. I'm sorry." He looks up sadly.

"Did you ever sleep in a coffin?" I ask, eager to move on. He does seem to be in an answering mood.

"Do you ever stop?" Or, maybe not.

"Do you always answer questions with questions?" Ha! Take that!

"Shit no, I've never slept in a coffin. Unless I had to." 'Unless I had to'?

"I never stop." See, I can answer questions.

"From what I've gathered, all the old vampires are rooted in tradition."

"You only get the files of the troublemakers." He eyes the stack of files next to our map pointedly. "Speaking of which…"

"What about your past?" He stares at me, confused. "What about it?"

"I mean, haven't you done anything interesting, bizarre, famous?"

"Yeah, I built Stonehenge." I kick him in the shins and he doesn't seem to notice.

"Be good."

"Always, mother."

"What about women?" And suddenly the mood of the room changes from playful to deathly serious when his head snaps up and he stares me down.

"What about them?"

"What, a thousand years and you haven't even had a girlfriend."

"I guess. Hasn't really been my priority."

"Why not? What happened to 'it's our method of reproduction'?"

"Exactly. So, only actually attracted to those with traits that appeal to us. Ones that might survive the process of becoming…" He winces, unable to finish the sentence.

"So, no one? Ever?" He glares at me.

"Okay, you know what? The cryptic eye contact's gotta stop."

"Fine. Translation: uncomfortable topic. And no, not for a very, very long time."

"So, not even _me_?" I fake pout and stick out my lower lip.

"Okay, you know what? Any answer I have to that question will just be awkward." He grins at me.

"Yeah, whatever. Chicken." _Chicken._ Oh Lord. No. Please, no, tell me it was just a series of dreams, let it just be dreams. Processing of information. Let it be that. I mean, what time period were they? Whatever it was, I'm sure it falls within the last thousand years.

"I'm not." He smiles. But I suddenly don't feel like joking, and it seems neither does he. Tentatively, he places one of his hands on my arm and stares into my eyes. I resist the urge to squirm and move backwards, away. In any direction.

"I can't do this. I'm sorry, Joanna." I frown.

"What are you talking about? What's that supposed to mean?" He releases his grip and grabs up the maps in a sweeping motion, tapping them on the table to align them.

"Either you can't remember, or you won't remember. I either have excruciatingly bad karma, or you just don't want to admit it. But you're too much like her. Maybe you are her and you don't remember. You look like her, you sound like her, you act like her. Or maybe she was like you. But I can't. I can't do this to myself or to you." His voice cracks midway through his speech.

"Can't do what? Mort, you're not making any sense." He stares at me, and despite my denials I know. I don't want to, but I do. His eyes are red and I can see tears form slowly in the corners of his eyes just as they begin to form in mine. You can't leave, you can't leave now. Not when I need you the most. I'm begging you, don't abandon me. Please.

He places a hand on my face and wipes one of the tears in my eyes away with his thumb. I place my hand on his. _Stay._

He pulls his hand from my grasp and stands up, his face cold and his eyes set. _No._ He turns to leave, opening the door, back to me.

"So, that's it? You're just going to give up because it isn't worth it?" I use the words from my dream, hoping, praying now, that that's who he's talking about. He freezes, and I watch as every single muscle in his back goes tense with emotion.

"Too late." He says quietly, and I can hear the door close quietly in the background. Everything seems in a haze as my breathing grows heavier and more ragged. I remember now. I remember who I was, before, presumably, I was reincarnated. The daughter of a well-to-do merchant in Europe, no one seemed to notice the bizarre phenomenon of an Indian locksmith, but he had been good at what he did. I was named after Mizilca, the heroine who pretended to be a man to save her father's life. She got out with her life, though. I remember, too, the cruel irony that no one should write down what happened for fear of being ridiculed. But I don't shed a single tear. I have more important things to do.

I grab my coat on the way out to work. One of the buttons is hanging on by a single thread. I ought to fix that.


	7. Which Is Really Just Filler

Disclaimer (whoops, I forgot to add these for like the last three chapters. Heh.): Wait…actually, I don't need one for here. Yeah, I've pretty much gotten over the lack of attention this story's gotten. There's a distinct lack of BT characters, for the most part. Sorry. Kinda forgot. Ahha…Well, they'll show up soon enough. Just bear with me.

"Hey, Nikolai. It's…well, it's me. I was just wondering. Well, wondering if…you wanted to maybe…come over? I finished with work and I was sitting thinking and I thought that…that maybe I should call you? I…I'm sorry. I don't know why…" I take a deep breath to calm myself.

Didn't work.

I hang up abruptly. Woops. I'm pretty impulsive these days. Who am I kidding? I don't need his crap, I don't need his hovering or his proclamations or his…

_Just say it. His teeth._ I take a shuddering breath. What'd I just do? I gave him false hope is what I did. I don't want to see him, I absolutely don't want to see him. I want to see Mort. I want to tell him that four hundred years later, it's all alright, and I kept my promise. _I have no doubt that I will see you again._ I want to see him again with that realization. I laugh to myself. "There's no pull in the universe stronger than longing." Fat lot you know, Fitzroy. Bloody gravity is stronger than longing. He's not coming back.

I wouldn't.

I jump at the knock on my door. He couldn't have gotten here that fast, could he? Nik's fast, but he's not _that_ fast. Then I feel that fleeting, small flicker of hope that I've tried to beat down in the few days since Mort's disappearance. It first showed up when I went to his 'house' – the school. _Maybe he's still here_, I thought. _Maybe I'll find him and be able to explain myself._ _Maybe it will be alright._ So it was that much worse when every room looked as if it had been abandoned for years. Even the ones he'd fixed up.

One of the most ironic things about losing people is that it's those times when you need them most. When you want them there to comfort you. Of course, if they were there, you wouldn't need comforting.

I still can't keep that hope down, despite telling myself no. No, it's not him. No, it can't be him, because he didn't come back. He won't come back. Still, my heart speeds up. Despite knowing, with absolute and unshakeable certainty that it isn't him, the glimmer of hope is waiting, waiting to be ignited as I make my way for the door, as I place my hand on the handle, as I slowly pull it open.

Sometimes I hate being right.

"Hey, Nik. I guess you got my message?" I smile weakly.

"I was already on my way over here, anyway. Your message just made me speed." He smiles, matching me in trepidation. "You sounded…is something wrong, Jo?" My smile broadens a little bit. This is the guy I wanted to show up at my door. This is the guy I missed.

"Nothing. I've just…been having a weird few days is all."

"So you decided to call your resident vampire? We need to work on your logic, girl." His shy grin broadens and I invite him in with a gesture. He swings his arm around my waist, jokingly, and with a flick of his wrist produces a DVD.

"Oh, poo, I hate The Illusionist." He doesn't falter.

"You didn't hate it a year ago!" He counters.

"Yeah, well, I watched the commentary! Now I don't even know if the happy ending was real." I explain. He just chuckles softly and turns so that we face each other. He brushes a lock of red behind my ear.

"I guess that depends on your definition of a happy ending." He murmurs softly.

"And what, praytell, is _your_ definition of a happy ending?" He laughs.

"The hero finds the secret. Gets the girl. Or dies."

"So, it's a guy." I accuse.

"Not always. I resort to masculine pronouns. I apologize, m'lady." He bows low enough for his dark hair to sweep the ground.

"Useful as that is, I do have brooms for that." I pull him up by his shoulders. This is better, much better. It is forced now, my cheer, my social attitude. I'd rather be by myself, wallowing in self pity. But I've tried that before. Not again. I still feel that tug on my chest, knowing that…that what? That he got mad, that he refused to listen to reason? Could he still come back? See reason and come back?

No. I refuse to hang my life on that hope.

"Hello? You're daydreaming, Jo." Nik reminds me. Placing his hand on the small of my back, I allow myself to be led to the couch as he sets the movie up.

"Maybe we can convince ourselves it is a happy ending. I'll turn the commentary off, I promise." He smiles at me as he turns the lights off. Despite myself, I can't help but shiver at the thought of the last time I was watching I movie while he was here. I absentmindedly place my hand on my neck. It's cold [my hand, and is moderately soothing.

So we sit down and start watching with one of those spoken silences. I suppose if you had to write it down it would look something like "…". There's awkward eye contact and I'm not really sure if anyone should say anything or we should just sit in companionable silence. It's not really companionable silence if you have to figure out whether or not it's companionable silence, is it?

"Your neck, does it hurt?" He asks me innocently enough. I nod numbly, anticipating and fearing anything he might do.

"I'm sorry." He looks down at the floor sadly. Oh, well, boo-freakin'-hoo, you should've thought of that before you tried to eat me.

"You know I can't control my actions when I get like that." He looks up again, hopefully, and I purse my lips, confused. Was that a threat? He leans in closely and brushes hair away from my neck, right near the sore spot.

"You can't be serious." My voice is weak. He leans in closer, hovering over my shoulder, and right before he performs whatever action he's planning he looks up at me through his eyelashes and flashes a quick smile. He closes his eyes and breathes, long and cold, on the sore spot. Cool, even cold breath washes over me in a numbing of senses, and the pain is numbed considerably. I close my eyes and breath, long and slow, willing it to continue.

I feel cold icicles shoot through my body, blossoming from my neck where he's brushed his hand. I smile a little.

"Better?" He asks.

"Thanks." I reply sleepily. He smiles happily and places a hand on my face, rubbing my cheek with his thumb.

"You should sleep now." It's more of an order than a suggestion.

"No." I reply, clear and precise now. He raises his eyebrows and holds his hands up defensively. "Okay. Sorry, it's just that you look really tired." I shake my head and laugh halfheartedly.

"Say, could you help me with something?" I ask.

"That depends." He replies slyly.

"Have you ever heard of someone named Victoria Nelson?" I've suddenly remembered what Henry asked me to do nearly a week ago, and I'm consumed with guilt over not having done anything about it. This is a woman's life he's relying on me for.

"I believe so. Runs a PI business, recently begun getting into the…darker side of the universe?" I hate how he says that. Like a vampire is such a different thing, more than just a different species. Like they're part of the 'darker side of the universe'. The universe is all dark side. The universe, frankly, is like a kid with a magnifying glass, sunlight, and a lovely little anthill of people's lives to fuck with.

"Yes, that sounds right. Do you happen to know if anything's been…happening to her?" I phrase the question carefully, trying my best not to make it suggestive that something has.

"Why?" I wince inwardly. Why, indeed? He doesn't know about Pollox as far as I know.

"She's…a friend. I haven't heard from her in quite a while. She's…not…returning any of my phone calls." For once, I thank god for all the time I've spent around vampires allowing me to keep my pulse from speeding up noticeably. It's a bizarre trick, but when you think about it it's one of two circles you get stuck on: the more common: 1) What if my heart rate speeds up and it makes it look like I'm lying? 2) Heart rate speeds up at the thought of it. 3) Start worrying about your increasing heart rate, further increasing it. Or, you might get 1) If I don't let it go up, they won't know. 2) Heart rate stays relatively normal because you know they can't know, etc. I've worked long and hard to always stay on that second track.

"Oh. Well, I'll look into it, but I've never actually met the woman. Why ask me?" He tilts his head to the side curiously.

"It...her disappearance may have something to do with…" I look away.

"Us? Our kind, you mean?"

"Well, not, I mean…I guess so. If you want to put it like that. It's just that her disappearance is coinciding with the appearance of some new ones and…Well, you know…" He smiles at me.

"Tomorrow, okay?" I smile back at him.

"Okay." Despite myself, I lie down, resting my head on one of the cushions on the couch to watch the movie. It's hard enough to keep my eyes open now regardless, and becomes near impossible when he starts to pet me.

"Excuse me."

"Yeah?"

"I am not a cat."

"You need to sleep. I'm helping you."

"It's creepy."

"Your heart rate is slowing." It is, too. I'm falling asleep, even though I don't want to. I close my eyes, not even bothering with the halfhearted 'I'll just close my eyes for a second…' remark, because have you ever _actually_ just closed your eyes for just a second? I just burrow myself deeper into the pillows and squeeze my eyes shut, breathing in the heady scent of my couch. I can revel in the smell, if I ignore the fact that it comes from…from my old dog.

I feel one of my hands be taken, out fingers interlaced delicately. At this point, I don't even bother to think about whose hand it is. It just feels nice to be taken care of. I squeeze his hand, more for confirmation that there really is someone there than for any other reason.

"Thanks," I murmur. I feel him lean in close and kiss me on the cheek. So, just for tonight, I pretend that everything is okay. That I won't wake up empty.

A/N: I've kind of been questioning my ability to write Johnny in pain. It's not my most comfortable emotion. So, sadly, the only way I know to make her deal with it convincingly is to write it how I would deal with it, so I apologize for that (except for the calling of semi-abusive vampiric exs. Yeah. Never done that.) So, if anyone has some constructive criticism on how I could better portray this and make it affect the reader more, it would be appreciated beyond words. This is me begging, in case you hadn't figured that out. Reviews feed plot rabbits (it's a lot less fun when you call them rabbits, isn't it?) Plot hares. Ew. That puts me in mind of…oh, nevermind.


	8. Which is a Cliffhanger, Somewhat

Disclaimer: I promise, promise, PROMISE that our favorite little couple shows up again in the next chapter. I just got kind of sidetracked :D.

"…_You don't ask me much, and I guess I'm grateful._

_You don't know the things about me that only people's friends are allowed to mention._

_ Stories that everyone pretends are made less distressing from the silvery film that collects on them over time, but…_

_really aren't."_ – Elliot Harmon, _Poem_

XXX

"What, never?"

"Never."

"However many bajillion years and you never, EVER had to spend the night in a crypt?"

"Nope." He pops his lips contentedly.

"But…aw, come on!"

"Hey, here's a shocker: I've also never turned into a bat."

"How about vampire wives?"

"That's it. I'm taking your copy of Dracula away permanently. This is unhealthy." I pout.

"Jo, shouldn't you know this by now? Haven't you spent enough time in the company of vampires?"

"…yes. But for once you're acting sane." He doesn't say anything, and I know I've ruined the moment. We continue walking in muffled silence. We're walking an indefinite length down the side of Lake Ontario, me in a generic coat and him in…well, just a long sleeved t shirt. Stupid cold bloods.

"Why did you leave me that message a week ago?" He stops walking and I stop along with him. I don't know what to say; how do you answer something like that? I don't even know. Then there's the other part of what he said: a week ago. Has it only been that long? I confess, after Mort…after he left, time has seemed rather trivial. I've went along with my work, maintained my life, numbed myself. I've found that that's much easier than actually dealing with things like this. The thing that gets me is, it's not even the realization of my past life that's killing me. How can someone who was only in your life for three months leave you feeling so crippled? Every time I even begin to think about I get this…I don't know how to describe it. Like a pull, a dull, constant pain in my chest, more than physical. I realize how sappy that sounds, believe me. I…I just want it to stop. Shouldn't I have stopped caring by now?

But every time I get that feeling I push it back down. The gut turning, the heart wrenching. I ignore it and I go about my business and then I forget what it was I was so upset about. Until I think of him again. Hey, everyone over the age of 23 needs sufficient angsty material, right?

"Jo?" His voice is soft, like he's waking me from a dream, which he is, in a sense. "Yeah?" I reply, equally quiet.

"Why did you call me?"

"Because I…wanted to. I wanted to, okay?" I hate making eye contact at times like these. Instead I stare into the icy black water of the lake.

"Wow, man. That's got to be, like, what? Thirty-five, forty degree water?" I mutter. It's raining pretty hard, too.

"Jo? Tell me. It's okay, I promise I won't be mad." Sure you do. Because you, you never get mad, right? He chuckles.

"Let me guess. I played sloppy seconds to your other little buddy?" He comes up behind me.

"I…no, Nik, it's not…you have to know…I mean, I never…"

"You want to talk about it?" I turn my head to stare at him in stunned silence. _Talk about it? TALK ABOUT IT? Shit no, I don't want to talk about it! I don't want to think about it, I don't want to know it or remember or know him or remember him! No, Nik, no I do not want to TALK ABOUT IT. I want to forget it._

"Nah, that's okay." I answer, catatonic. I turn my face away, and we both stare out into the lake, the water lapping the shores of one of the distant Marinas. So oblivious.

"Did he do something?" I don't answer him.

"Look, Jo, whatever he did…"

"He didn't do anything. Quit it." I hear him snort, amused.

"Very well." He snakes his arm around my waist, and I can practically read his thoughts: _As long as I get you._ I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I opt for neither. The fact is that he's right; it's not that I want to see him. It's that of all the people I know (which are few), he's the one that least reminds me of…_Oh, come one, you pansy. You can't even say his name? Can't even think it?_ I'm not sure if this counts as modesty. Having a little voice that mocks any decisions I make. Hey, one point for crazy! Woohoo!

"Nik?"

"Yes?"

"Could you go home? It's not that…I mean, it's just that right now…" I take a deep breath and let it out in a relieving sigh. I look at him and he stares back at me, grey-blue eyes burning holes into my very being. I can feel my eyes grow hot, like a build up of electricity behind my eyeballs as they grow shiny with moisture. I don't want to cry in front of him, or anyone for that matter. Not even myself. Wow, when did I become Mopey Mary? 'Everything is sad and my life sucks and waaaah!' Yeah, well, you stuck up prude, there are carpet slaves in India. Sheesh!

"Are you sure?" He asks gently. I know he didn't mean it the way I'm taking it, but by god I don't care.

"Am I sure? Am I sure? Why the hell would I tell you to go if I wasn't sure?! I mean, wow, Nik, it takes special skills to be that dumb."

"I see. You were…telling me, not asking me." His voice is cold, almost…predatory.

"Yes, I was telling you. Leave. Now." I realize that I should back off, I can't risk angering him, but something inside me just now stopped caring.

"Joanna…" His eyes twitch for a second, like he's fighting for control. He releases his grip of my waist and repeatedly curls and uncurls his fists, breathing becoming more obvious.

Breathing?

Mort had told me once that a vampire's heart only beat when he was in vampire 'mode' – in order to pump the new blood through the body. That's when it becomes necessary to breathe.

I need to stop provoking him.

"Whatever, Nikolai. Just leave, 'kay? I don't want to talk to you." What's wrong with me?! Why would I do that? This is suicide.

Exactly.

When did I stop caring?

He's breathing heavily now, I can clearly see silver white eyes penetrating me in the darkness. I take a step back and he takes one forward; the human is no longer in control. I resist the urge to run away, to flee, to make myself become the prey.

Too bad it's rooted in our instincts.

Before I even know what I'm doing I turn around and start running for my life; which is probably the mistake that will cost me it. He's uncontrollable now, he can't help it. Nik wasn't ever properly taught to control himself, he had to teach himself, for which he has paid a certain price. I feel like I'm running through molasses or wet sand, like no matter how far I run I'm never closer to anything. I can hear my breathing and feel my lungs from cold air, but I feel distant. Like it's happening to someone else. Like I'm just along for the ride. Every noise sounds distant, muffled, like I were hearing it through cloth. I don't chance a glance behind me, but I know that he can only control himself for so long before he starts chasing me with inhuman speed.

That's when I know what I need to do, my only chance of escape. There's always a way out.

I head for the lake, despite my knowledge that I'll likely catch hypothermia. No, that never happens to the damsel in distress. It would be inconvenient. I reach the edge of the dock and waste precious moments staring into the inky depths.

There's this thing, called Blue Fear. I don't know what the actual term is. Basically, it's a when you are underwater and you suddenly come to the realization that anything can attack you from any direction. Add that to pitch black water, and you need a mighty brave diver, even when it's planned.

But I can hear him running behind me and I've got seconds to decide how to die. At least this way, there's a chance, however small, that I will survive, right? No. I dive in anyway, and it's almost surreal: every noise, every sound, every solid object melts away. I can't hear the rain anymore, or my own breathing, or anything. I only see black, inky, impenetrable black, and…

And a school of alewife. That's when I'm reminded that I'm not in purgatory, yet, and that I am in fact in a gigantic lake. I manage, frantically, to make it to the surface for a few brief seconds to get a great breath of air; and the water looks terribly turbid. It's a storm. I look for somewhere to get to, finally deciding on one of the islands, though it's terribly far away. I take one more deep breath and plunge myself under, though not too far away from the surface. I give up entirely on doing any type of actual stroke, settling for just kicking and sweeping my arms.

I settle into this rhythm, and as bizarre as it sounds it's almost calming. I lull myself into a false sense of security and self-delusion. It'll be okay. I'd always had trouble taking things seriously, always convincing myself that it would work out. I can't die, not here, not now, that happens to other people. Not me. Despite myself, I can't help but think:

_He'll come. He always comes. Mort always comes in time._

I can see in the distance, though moving closer slowly, the rock face that leads up to the island I had been heading for. One of the smaller ones, and from what I know of the place the area I might get to is mostly just beach. But still, maybe, maybe he'll have gotten control of himself by then. Please, God, let him have gotten control by then.

It's at this point that I realize I really, really shouldn't think about the fact that I'm swimming with my shoes and jacket on. After all, I'd been doing okay so far. Nope. Not thinking about it. So for once, I wrap myself in my pain: face it. He's not coming back. I don't know why I'm so upset about this, either. You two worked together, and only for three months!

_And four hundred years._

No. No, shut up, that was for one night, followed by a four hundred year hiatus and then being requited for a brief three month period. That's not…

_It's fucking romantic, admit it._

How the hell is that romantic? We were friends.

_Yeah, sure. Friends. Tell that to your little movie night._

Shut up! I was revisiting a painful memory!

_Honey, you're having a conversation with yourself. Either you're crazy or you're in denial._

Let's go with that first one. Fucking voice of reason.

_Rock._

What?

_Rock._

Voice Of Reason, you're not making any sense.

_ROCK!_

I snap out of my little foreshadowing craziness and realize that I've traveled amazingly far in that period of time, despite not being able to feel any of my outer extremities. The sharp face of the rock is looming closer and closer and that's when I realize…

I can't pull back. I'm heading straight for it and the reason I got there so fast is because the water was pushing me in that direction. This whole time I thought I was swimming in my own direction, turns out I didn't have any choice. Wait, if I can get to the right far enough, it stops and looks like a gentle slope onto a rocky beach. I fight the current, trying to get there. If I can only move to the right just a little…but I'm running out of time as the rock comes closer and closer. I won't make it.

Intense, burning pain shocks my entire body as I slam my head into the rock, and I see blood cloud the water in front of me and I know the cut is bad. But the adrenaline has kicked in and my body won't let me give up hope yet. I cling to the cliff, raise my head above the water just barely, taking a few long and shallow breaths. I go back under and start crawling along the rock to the right, towards the beach. I can feel my limbs shake from cold and fatigue, but I keep willing myself…just that much farther…

Finally, I manage to drag myself onto the beach, but not much farther. That's where I stop crawling, just a few feet from the water line, watching my blood run between cracks and spaces in the rocks, smoothed by time and water. That's where I stop moving and just lie, watching myself bleed to death. That's where I shiver involuntarily, my lips blue and my face ghostly white from the algid water and the constant, pelting rain. But I've stopped feeling things. That's when I stop trying. I can only think one thing, over and over and over again:

_He didn't come…_

A/N: Like I said, they'll show up again soon. It's just that, well, we couldn't have Henry be the creepy guy, could we? Also, I'd love. LOVE. Anyone's thoughts on the whole Mort/Johnny relationship thing, because the two of them are really beginning to confuse me. So, anyone who isn't subjected to their crazy ramblings 24/7 can probably see it with considerably more clarity than I. So, reviews feed me plot bunees. And, objectively, what is your impression of the two characters?_  
_


	9. Bittersweet Cliches

"Is she alive?" I hear a voice. Feminine.

"Yes. Barely." Another one. Masculine.

"Ohmigod." I hear footsteps, like the crunch of feet on gravel, and feel deliciously warm hands on either of my cheeks, fingers check my pulse.

"Henry, do something!" I hear the woman shout. I hear more rushed footsteps and sense another person kneel down beside me, and the two warm hands are replaced by freezing ones. I feel a dull, thudding pain in my head, but it's fuzzy, like someone's stuffed my head with cotton. I feel something be pressed to the place that's hurting, soft and smooth like silk, and…a little uncomfortably wet.

"Did it work?" I hear the man, Henry, ask.

"I don't know. You're the one with the magic spit." I hear another voice, another man. In a mild fit for contact, I grab onto the arm I can feel holding my face.

"Look, she's doing better! Joanna? Joanna, can you hear me?" The woman asks. I don't feel like answering, so I just 'mmmm'. I can vaguely tell that I'm being picked up by one of them, my head being supported by one arm and the other under my knees. I don't care who it is, just that there's a body close to me. I bury my face in the arm. I feel another hand on my back, or at least what feels like a hand, because I don't know what else it could be.

"You'll be okay, Johnny, we're gonna take care of you. It's okay." One of them tells me.

XXX

The next thing I know, I'm waking up in a bathtub. I don't open my eyes, because I can already tell that there is an exceptionally yellowing light illuminating the room. I just roll over like I'm in a water bed without the sheets and rest my head on the cool tile on the side of the tub. It's then that I feel something wet and rough move up and down my arm systematically, like I'm being cleaned. I open my eyes slowly, blinking away the fatigue, and see spots for a few seconds before I adjust to the light.

"Joanna?" It's a soft voice, but masculine. I frown and look up at the surprisingly worried face of Henry Fitzroy.

"Vicki!" He calls, and the tall blonde woman that I met at the Dome hurries over, sock-covered feet swishing on the tile floor.

"She's awake." He told her.

"She doesn't appreciate being talked about like she's not here." I tell him, trying to assert some form of dignity, which is difficult when you're fully clothed and soaking wet in a stranger's bathtub.

"Vic, are you sure you two aren't related?" He asks her, smiling slightly.

Vicki just makes a face at him. "Henry, can you leave?" He nods and stands up, though inspects her hand before leaving.

"It's fine, you idiot." She tells him. He purses his lips, unsatisfied, but leaves.

"Hey," she leans down by the side of the tub.

"Ms. Nelson," I mutter. "I see you were found in better condition than I." She smirks.

"Nah, I just recover better from fatal head injuries." I try to laugh but it turns into a cough.

"Whoa there. Relax."

"Why am I in a bathtub?"

"We were trying to wash the blood off." I look down, and I see that the water I'm in is pink. Looking near the outside of the tub, I see a bin with water that's almost solid red. Vicki laughs a little.

"You know, you should be dead considering the blood loss and hypothermia." I absentmindedly reach up and touch my shoulder. Ironic, isn't it? That the resistance to disease and hardiness I've developed is partially from the very creature that tried to kill me.

"Why would you tell her that?" I hear Henry, talking to someone.

"Because it's better that way." Another voice. I try to turn towards the sound of it, but end up moaning in pain due to my aching back.

"Johnny?!" I hear a shout from what must be the front hall. It's not…it can't be Nik. He wouldn't come back again. I hear running, footsteps echoing down a long, empty hall. The door is flown open but he stops, like there's a barrier, right at the threshold. He stares at me like he can't believe what he's actually seeing.

"Johnny?" He asks, like he doesn't believe it himself. I just stare back at him.

"Yeah." I smile, blinking back tears.

Mort rushes over, kneeling by the tub, and grabs my hand, squeezing. Despite my massive blood loss and the fact that I shouldn't, you know, be alive, I can't keep the girlish flutters from my stomach. I squeeze his hand right back.

"You came back." I whisper. Wow, that sounded dumb. He gives a choked, sobbing laugh.

"Course I did. Course I did, sweetie." He pulls a chunk of wet hair away from my face and touches the already scabbing over gash on my head.

"You said you weren't coming back." I protested. He laughs genuinely this time.

"Miz, how could I not? Four hundred years is a long time to amass guilt." I blink a few times, confused.

"I thought you couldn't feel guilt."

"I can feel guilt. It just takes a lot more guilt." Well, having someone kill themselves for you is pretty ample reason for a lot more guilt, isn't it. I can feel tears running down my cheeks, but this time they aren't sad. I press the side of my face into his palm and close my eyes, opting for sleep.

"Tired?" He asks me.

"Mmmmm…"I reply.

"Okay. Come on." He grunts and picks me up, carrying me into a bedroom.

"Can you dress yourself?" I don't think I can even move my own limbs.

"What's my other option?"

"I do it for you." Then again, maybe I can.

"'Kay, I'll see you in a bit." I close the door. Then, as an afterthought, I crack it open and stick my head out.

"Don't leave, okay?"

"Okay."

XXX

A/N: Music for here: Acoustic version of 'Fewer Broken Pieces' by David Bazaan, and 'There Ain't No Reason' by Brett Dennen. Just a suggestion ;.

The next thing I know, I'm in the bed with the covers tucked under my legs and feet just the way I like. I smile and wrap myself tighter in my cocoon. I can feel a bizarre pressure on my neck.

Okay, I'll open my eyes and see what it is.

In a little. On the count of ten, I promise, I'll get up. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

Ten. Okay, maybe on the count of twenty. I open my eyes and find myself face to face with Mort, who's lying next to me on the bed propped up on one elbow. I realize how stupid it is to notice something so trivial now, but in the V of his shirt I can see a line of muscle. I know, right? Shallow much?

The arm that's not propping me is reaching out, and now I realize that the pressure on my neck is his fore and middle fingers pressed to my jugular vein. I blink my heavy eyelids.

"What? Don't tell me you're thirsty." He smiles at me sadly.

"I just…I just like to know that it's still beating." I open my mouth, full and ready with a snide reply, but I don't know what to say to something like that. It's sweet, in a perverse sort of way. He pulls away and sits up on the bed. We stare at each other awkwardly for a minute or two. Then I crawl out of my covers and wrap him in as much of a bear hug as I can handle.

I can just imagine what we'd look like to any passers-by: the scene resembles that of a little girl hugging a really, really big teddy bear. That's kind of what it feels like.

Just to see if I can get away with it, I whisper-shout: "Teddy!"

"What?" I cough.

"Nothing. Cough cough. Poor me. So sad and sick. Ahem." I can feel him shake a bit in silent laughter. He smells like soap and old paper.

It's a nice smell.

"Johnny?" He wakes me from reveling in his return.

"Yep?" He pulls away, holding me at arm's length.

"You sure you're okay?" He frowns at me. I'd be pissed at him, but to be fair I was pretty self-destructive. Calling Nik could only ever end badly. Except for the times that it ended well. I do love him, in a way that makes no sense at all. It's not his fault that he's the way he is, that he never learned self-control. He did a lot better than most abandoned yearlings do. He had no clue how to not kill someone he fed from, and in a sense I helped him practice. Once he became attached, to me that is, it helped him know when to stop: the idea of killing me was too awful for him. But when he vamped-out, it was still harder. That's when I'd had to…kill him. The first time. But apparently a silver bullet in the gut didn't do the job.

I know what you're thinking, I'm a terrible person. Awful, for not feeling enough remorse about it. But I do. Every day, I think to myself that there was another way, that we could have gotten past it. That I could still have him. I won't tell you how many times I rocked myself to sleep thinking of the look on his face, begging me to end him…

"What happened to Nik?" His mouth hangs open slightly.

"Johnny…" Oh my god.

"Mort? Tell me. What happened to him?" He looks away.

"I…he…" He takes a shaking breath. I choke back tears.

"Please. Please, tell me. Please, Mort." He looks back up at me.

"I killed him." I can only stare at him, trying to absorb the sentence bit by bit. Three words can change your life. Nik's dead. Gone, this time, I didn't leave him bleeding out in a ditch. If Mort killed him, he's dead.

"Why?" My voice cracks. He looks shocked for a second, and I can see why.

"He was going to kill you, Johnny! I…" He grabs my chin and forces me to look at him.

"I pushed him back into the water. He was beaten against the rocks swimming after you. Joanna, believe me, there's a certain point at which even a vampire can't come back." I don't know whether to cry into his shoulder or tell him to get out.

"Leave." He stares at me sadly for a moment, then relents.

"Okay. I'll be just a yell away if you need me."

"Okay." I won't cry in front of him. He leaves, closing the paint-peeling door. I grab my pillow and bury my face, sobbing uncontrollably. There's nothing else to tell you. It's all I did. I didn't think about the good times or anything else. I just cried. I cry because I really, really need to cry right now. My body is wracked with sobs, and I let it be. Because I need to cry for a reason now.

A/N: There's actually an epilogue, but for all intensive purposes, THE END. Reviews feed my plot bunnies!


	10. Epilogue

This is the first time in a week I've left Mort's house. I came back to the lake, back to the spot where I last saw him. The wind whips my hair around my face in a mad tangle, but I don't mind. I'm staring at the water. This lake, this water. This creature. She'd kill you without even knowing your name.

"Bitch," I whisper. I spit into the now calm, crystalline blue waters. I feel the ghosts of tears running down my cheeks, but I've cried myself out. I feel Mort come up behind me, place his hand on my back.

"Are you okay?" He asks me. I stare at the island that I almost lost my life on. Am I okay.

"No." I reply.

"No, I am most definitely not okay."

THE END

So…anyone's thoughts are much appreciated. I'm rather satisfied with the whole bittersweet ending, the idea of it that is, not too sure how well it was written.


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